Writing online tutorials - legal thoughts?

[ellie]

Hi,

I'm wondering if someone could shed some light on this area. I'm thinking of creating some video based online turtorials for Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects and Final Cut Pro.

The thing is I'm not sure legally if I can take screen grabs of these programs and create tutorials from them. Do I need to get some rights to show how to use these programs?

Thanks

[Dan.Linehan]

I don't think copyright is an issue in this case.

[Brutha]

I don't now the exact legal status, but most people who make tutorials don't ask for permisson.
As long as you do nothing like making a tutorial about installing Photoshop without a legal key, you should be fine.

[Lil Chris]

There should be no problem at all, the one thing i might suggest is if you use the term (microsoft, photoshop, adobe etc...) just throw in the little ® symbol... No biggy...

[RLaRock]

I agree with Lil Chris, its always a good idea to give credit to the copyright holder.

As for use of copyrighted material in tutorials, I believe that falls under the Fair Use clause of the US Copyright laws (section 107). The clause allows the use of copyrighted material...

for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

You can read the whole section on the US Government copyright site at:

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107

I should point out that I'm not a lawyer, but having created many video tutorials, I have done some research on this.

And personally, if I had a product, I would love to have people doing tutorials for it. It helps grow your customer base as well as helping to provide a better user experience.

[ellie]

Thanks everyone for your feedback much appreciated