Game images on a website?

FightTest

So I'm getting ready to launch a little project website of mine dealing with things video game-related. I'm a developer, not a designer, so I fucking hate dealing with graphics and layout. So to make things easy on myself on my test server I've cropped out part of a screenshot (from Team Fortress 2 in this case) and slapped it together with a background and some text to make sort of a header image.

I'm curious about the legality of this if I were to launch using it, or the concept in general. Can I just run with it, do I need to put a "character/tf2 copyright valve etc.." below my site's general copyright, should I just save myself the hassle and make a completely custom header to avoid a lawyer assault? Does it depend on what the site is/does/intends?

Thanks for any IANALbuts (or IAALands).

Jasconius

I think there's a concept out there such as "Fair Use". I don't know the details nor if it applies.

The reality of the situation is unless you are profiting specifically from the use of their artwork then they are unlikely to take any sort of legal action prior to a polite request for you to change the image.


There's a guy on these boards who uses a shitton of video game screenshots and official fodder for one of his services and I haven't heard of any problems.

flatlinegraphics

murky area of copyright law.

you are not looking under fair use. fair use is for editorials, student work, parody, etc. If you were writing a review of TF2, you could include a screenshot.
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html#howmuch
copyright.gov has more info than you'll ever need.

you would more be looking under derivative works or collage. some stuff is kosher, some not. it kinda depends on how much of the original you use. and the rights holder really has final say weather they want to go after you. and sometimes the holder lets things slide.

and just because someone else is doing it doesn't mean that they are not in violation. it just means they haven;t been caught.

so, i am not advising you to just use it, but if you do, you may get a c&d letter. and if you do, you best heed it, or they will send in cloaked spies to backstab you in the night. if the site has nothing to do with tf2, you might want to go searching through archive.org and creativecommons for non copyrighted images or abandoned images.