Using Screenshots for educational purposes - copyright

[marcus.braendle]

Hello,

is it allowed to take screenshots of the Inventor GUI and use it for educational purposes? It's non commercial use only and the manuscript will be just published for students taking the course.

Regards,

M.B.

[Mark.Lancaster]

@marcus.braendle 

As long as its only used in the class room (training) and stays in the classroom.  Once the manual leaves the room its not allowed because the school has no control over it and that information could be used elsewhere or photo-copied.

Update:  One more thing...  Who's is publishing this?   Are you just doing it or is the school or a 3rd party entity doing it?

[marcus.braendle]

@Mark.Lancaster 

Thank you for your fast reply. Is it possible to get a permission from Autodesk for such purposes?

It's not published yet. I'm writing it right now. It's not published over 3rd party, just for our course.

[Mark.Lancaster]

@marcus.braendle 

Your permission would be to obtain a commercial license and create the training manual.  Educational rules are very strict and there's no special permissions that you can obtain.

Update:  Unless you are printing it off yourself and leaving the material in the classroom (meaning the material is unable to leave), outside of that you will need a commercial license.

[marcus.braendle]

Allright. But if you look up legal judgements you can find for example:

https://bbs-law.de/2011/01/eugh-kein-softwareschutz-fuer-programmoberflaechen/

in which it says: "Copyright protection on a program surface as an independent, copyrighted work will only be considered in rare cases."

So it's really sad if there is no way for a free educational permission of using some screenshots to explain constructing.

[Mark.Lancaster]

@marcus.braendle 

I'm not a lawyer and unable to read what you provided (due to the native language of the article).   So I'm not given you legal advice or understanding laws that are in your country.  We are only users here and have no legal standing.

In the end I provided the info based on my experience with the Educational Community.  The message you have to very careful in what you are doing when deal with educational software that you got for free.   You can do whatever you want but I'm not the one that could end up being fined or your school is fined.   Is that a risk you are willing to take?

Anyhow..   Good luck...

[JDMather · Accepted solution]

I am not a lawyer, but there might be some useful information here -

https://www.autodesk.com/company/creative-commons

"You can freely borrow from the Autodesk Help, Support and Video libraries to build a new learning experience for anyone with a particular need or interest."

Whenever you create a Screencast Recording - that goes directly into Autodesk Support.