Using Screenshots of Comments on A Video Posted on Facebook.

[Michael Bittner]

Hello all! I was hoping for some advice and insight on this... I would like to do a video that would possibly lead me to posting screenshots of comments posted on a video that was shared on a news station's Facebook page. My question is, am I able to post these people's names or do I need to black out their names? I figure that since their words are publicly published on a social network that it is free for anyone to see anyway. Second question, is this video that was shared by the news station (shot my a pedestrian on scene of the accident) free for me to post as well? Any input would be awesome! Thanks!

 

[Harry Of All Trades]

The pedestrian that shot that footage has copyright of that video. Technically, you can't use it without permission.

As for comments, you probably don't need to cover up the name. It's a published communication. It's no different than someone writing a book. You may have to be careful ofd the privacy settings person posted it under. If they posted the comment to less than a full public post there might be some grey area. It's their message, they can control how it gets published. On the other hand, I think you would be hard pressed to claim copyright on a Facebook post, but if you want to be extra legally paranoid, you can check Facebook's Terms of Service. There might be something in there that grants other users of the service some rights to use it.

I know SoundCloud has some kind of provisions granting users to listen to published music.