Are TV screen shots of public figures copyright protected?

I'm building a website and would like to use images of some public figures (not celebrities). Say if I find an image of Larry King, which is a TV screen shot of him broadcasting, can I use it? I don't think there is anyway to find the original photographer for this type of images.

What if I take the picture myself? Do I need Larry King's consent to post the image on my website?

Finally, do you guys know of a good source to purchase standard photos if I don't want to use screen shots?

Thanks

 

I'm not 100% sure, but the scenario you present is a gray area ...it's not so much up to the discretion of the celebrity, but the station or publisher of the show/channel you took the picture of. So ultimately CNN could tell you to remove it because it's their program and yes they do own the rights to the 'screengrabs'. Fox sent out letters a while back asking all Simpsons sites to remove screengrabs, they later repented on this and allowed sites to put up screengrabs. However it still set precedent as to the ownership of those screenshots. So regardless of whether you take the screenshot yourself, you're still liable to copyright infringement.

However on a more positive note, there are several royalty-free sites that sell photographs of celebrities/personalities legally and some that do so for free (rarer to find). The main think to look for are images that are public domain or photographers who have given permission for others to use their works (see flickr). Wikipedia is also a great source since ALL images are public domain and allowable for republishing (as long as you're not selling them - GNU License I believe).

 

A screenshot is very likely fair use. It meets the four criteria of the fair use test:

-use
-nature
-amount
-effect

It is fair use except in exceptional circumstances (such as you selling the picture).

 

Thanks. All valuable information. I did try to contact CNN and Larry King about using his image and never got a reply. I didn't know Wikipedia images are safe to use; it has several photos I'd like to republish on my site. Will have to check it out, as well as Flickr.

 

You need to be very careful when it comes to Flickr. Flicker is a cesspool of copyrighted images uploaded by users who pretend that they are the copyright holders, when in actual fact they found the image online and just uploaded it to Flickr.

I've seen many cases of this, and in the end the legitimate copyright holder won't care where you got the image from. They'll take action against you or your site regardless.

 

Can you tell me what sites sell celeb photos?

 

More wrong information being passed on DP legal. All wiki images are not public domain.

 

Some are some are not. Click on the image to find out the copyright status.

 

Thanks for the warnings. I've checked on copyright disclosures on Wiki, and it looks like I may be able to use a couple of them. That is good enough.

Regarding Flickr, if the poster clearly states he owns the copyright and anyone can use it, how can visitors like me verify that? If I ask the person specifically he will still say the same thing, as already stated on the webpage. Is there a better way to double check, or it is just luck?

 

Fair Use is possibly being confused here. Taking a screenshot might be fair use if the article (whatever) is about that screenshot in particular.