Using copyright images to promote a nonprofit educational event

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  • At my library we want to use some images on a poster to market an educational and free program for adults and children. Can we use the images to promote this event? Does this fall under fair use? These images will not be distributed to the public in any other format.

    I noticed some websites that have used the characters stating that this is fair use as the images are on a banner for a discussion site.

    Can anyone please help?
  • If you are talking about multiple copies of a poster that will be displayed in locations around the community, then I would suggest obtaining permission before reproducing copyrighted images on the posters.
  • Thank you for your feedback Ruth. Fair Use can be such a gray area. I guess my real question is: Can the images be used even though the commentary/criticism will be offered at a later time and will not be used in conjunction with the images?
  • My take on commentary/criticism is that it is part of the fair use analysis for a specific use. If you're not using the image for commentary or criticism, then I wouldn't think that plans for later commentary or criticism of the work would be helpful. I do think that some use might be considered fair anyway, say, for example, if you were using only a small portion of a copyrighted piece of art and if it were only a small portion of the resulting poster. It's hard to analyze the web circumstances you mention, descry, but I don't think I would generally feel comfortable relying on someone else's analysis unless I knew more about them (was that note by a copyright expert?) or at least about their rationale.
  • Thanks for the feedback Freya. i will keep this information in mind.

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