I'm considering into branching out into game wallpapers for one of my sites. THe problem is that this seems to be an extremely grey area when it comes to copyright. Are you allowed to use promotional wallpapers, screenshots of the game, and then creating your own wallpapers? Anyone that has some experience in this? I don't want to risk my site, seeing as I'm very serious about not infringing on anyone's copyright.
It depends on your jurisdiction. If you are in South Africa, the Berne Convention may apply. In the U.S. (may be similar in other countries as well), creating wallpaper from game screenshots might actually qualify as original works created by you (i.e. your placement of figures within the screenshot could be an original "artistic" creation, particularly if you intended it as such). This would mean that your work of "pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works" are protected by copyright. I could be wrong, but I don't think that the software designer has can claim ownership over all the works created with its software, especially with "random" maps or placements of figures within the game. This kind of creation by you would seem to be an artistic original, itself covered by copyright. The problem with copyright law, though, is that it seems largely grey, and so matters of law must be ultimately decided by judges. If you have any looming questions, they can be directed to an attorney.
I have no idea, but common sense tells me: 1. There's nothing wrong with it, unless you're making money from it directly. 2. There's thousands of sites doing the exact same thing, some of them making tens of millions every year. 3. It can only really be positive publicity for the game in question. 4. Make sure you put 'All images belong to their original rights owners and umm, please don't sue me Mr. Sony and/or other generic game company' in a disclaimer.
There's your first sign of trouble. "Common sense" may seem well enough, but tell that to a judge when he orders you to pay a $10k fine + attorneys' fees + orders an injunction after you get dragged into court by some large software company! Actually, I know what you mean by what you are saying, but it is important to be careful nonetheless. I don't think that's necessarily true. You could be making money indirectly, such as from advertising revenue. I don't think this is a legitimate justification. If there are thousands of soldiers participating in genocide, that still wouldn't make it right. All this said, I did find something interesting. There's a case from the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (limited jurisdiction in the U.S. but with some influence), Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. v. Bleem, LLC, where someone was unsuccessfully sued for using a screenshot of a game. You can read the summary here, and you can find at least some guidance as to the legal nature and consequences of your actions.
I think this is rather an area I'm going to avoid for now. There are many sites out there that do this, but I'd rather not take my chances.
U.S. Copyright law is quite explicit that the making of what are called "derivative works" -- works based or derived from another copyrighted work -- is the exclusive province of the owner of the original work. This is true even though the making of these new works is a highly creative process. If you write a story using settings or characters from somebody else's work, you need that author's permission. Just ask the authors, they may co-operate with you on it.
Haha, you're still upset because I have site with cheats for PC games, and you said you played 30 hours of games every week, to justify your plight? Please stop spamming this forum, your post(s) are aimed towards me and offer nothing constructive to the discussion. As for the other troll, as labrocca clearly pointed out (using the term 'clearly' loosely, as he still hasn't quite figured out the 'Reply' button), the first thing I said was that I had no idea. I haven't been to law school, I don't have a degree in law and I haven't researched into the topic. I also think your post was pretty pointless, whereas my original post offered my point of view, yours just simply criticised mine with an unessecarily pedantic tone. For your information, it comes as no suprise that Sony would sue Bleem, Bleem is infact Sony PSX Emulator software, so Sony will take whatever bait they can bite. What's that supposed to mean? You're saying that a company such as www.ign.com are infact breaking the law? What about www.gamespy.com? How about www.gamespot.com? I even pay GameSpot to view their screenshots of games in an advertisement-free environment, how can they do that if what you claim is true? As I said, I only applied my common sense to the subject, the author asked about game screenshots, I can list 10,000 sites offering this, maybe 100,000 if I really wanted to wear down my keyboard.
You're calling me a troll because I disagree with you? Settle down, ok? It wasn't meant to be a personal attack. But I have been to law school, and I so I am familiar enough with the law in certain areas as to know that some justifications, such as the one "everybody's doing it", simply won't work - either in a legal or a moral sense (I don't think it's protecting people who are being sued by the RIAA). I apologize if my tone seemed "pedantic" - that's not what I intended - but I hardly think that my post was "pointless" either. It was merely a disagreement with some things you said, along with a way for the asker of the original question to further explore his legal options and to gain some guidance as to what the landscape in that area of law might look like.
The copyright situation is very ambiguous. For example, one day an image appeared on my website that I took publicly available on the Internet. A month later, he received a court notice from the author, allegedly violated his rights. At the same time, I often see that large sites use the same scheme - they take ready-made images or videos, and there are no consequences. For example, https://secretguide.ru/
If you want to create game wallpapers for your website, you need to be careful about copyright laws. The best way to avoid copyright problems is to make wallpapers using your own ideas and designs. This means you won't use anyone else's pictures or artwork. If you want to use images or screenshots from a game, ask the game developers for permission first. They might give you the green light or provide guidelines on how you can use their stuff. Also, some game developers allow their materials to be used under specific licenses, like Creative Commons. Make sure to understand and follow the rules of these licenses. In short, be careful about using other people's work without permission. Creating your own wallpapers or getting proper authorization is the safest way to go.