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Computer screens on screen, copyright violation?
I’m working on a commercial that has depicts navigating the clients website. You see a computer screen, a browser, and a QuickTime movie. Does showing those violate copyrights. Should I create a browser thats not quite like the ones out there, a movie player thats not quite Quicktime, and an screen thats not quite OSX or Windows. Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Adam -
6 Replies
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I’ve seen that done, but most often for national level spots and theatrical releases.
I gotta suggest though that if the viewers are concentrating on what browser the content is being watched on, you have bigger problems.
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Yup, you’d definitely have lost them!
Over here in the UK there’s an “incidental inclusion” defence against copyright claims.
It seems there may be something similar in the US ..
https://www.out-law.com/page-4098 -
You could perhaps use some open-source software and browser, or just crop that out or create an overlay in photoshop to hide the identity of the browser. If this is not about training for use with a specific platform, then hide or eliminate as much of that extraneous visual information as you can.
I wonder if the Linux people would be as legalistically contentious about such things?
One other point of fact; in national-level spots, often the web sites shown on screens within the spot are completely faked up in AfterEffects or another compositor anyhow, so as to increase the display quality. While it may in some cases look just like the real application, chances are it’s a higher-res mock-up you’re looking at anyhow.
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Actually, this is all AE work. I did change things slightly so they look like close to real applications but not quite. Truth is no one will even notice exept me since I’m the one making it. The movie player is on a total of 4 seconds and the browser for maybe 10. Some of that time is zooms or pans and the focus is on the website itself anyways.
thank you both for the comments.
Adam
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try to eliminate words like Internet Explorer or Quicktim Player. Many Flash movie players are generic looking. I suspect Firefox could use the publicity however.
A bigger issue I have it the Dell or HP logos seen on monitors and computers. -
How would you shoot a city scene? Build special cars? Mask out all the store signs?
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