That I can tell, the closest pertinent term is 2B.
I don’t believe that snapping off a screenshot counts as a “derivative” work. I’m not creating an addon or anything remotely derivative of Google Maps. For instance, if Google Maps was a book, I would see using that book as a basis for my own book to be creating a derivative work. While as if I cut out a physical page of the book and pasted it onto my collage, that’s not derivative because its an entirely different medium. Similarly, if Google Maps’ street view photos were intended to be artistic, usage in a work of art would be derivative, but they aren’t. Google just drives a truck around and it just shoots its surroundings in a scattershot manner.
It also prohibits making copies of any portion of the work. Do I fail on that ground?
IANAL, but I think “you must not copy […] the Content or any part thereof” is pretty straightforward. You’re copying the image. The Terms specifically disallow that.
And why do you think derivative works are limited by medium? From what I understand, a derivative work occurs whenever you take a copyrighted item and modify it substantially enough that the new item could conceivably get its own copyright. You woudn’t be doing that with a simple screenshot (that’d just be a copy), but you would be by making it into a webcomic.
The Terms also uses the simpler verb “modify”, which you most certainly are doing regardless of whether you do it enough to qualify the resulting work as a derivative. Even a tiny modification is disallowed.
So… my guess is no on all three counts.
That said, I don’t really believe Google is going to come after you for using Street View images in a webcomic. To my knowledge, they have done nothing similar to anyone else.
But to be safe, you can find freely-usable images of random places at many other sites: Wikimedia Commons Flickr Advanced Search for Creative Commons-licensed content labeled “Find content to modify, adapt, or build upon” Google Advanced Image Search for images labeled for “[commercial or not] reuse with modification”.
Their Content isn’t images, it’s maps. I’m not copying their maps, nor does what I’m offering to the client serve any useful purpose as a map. I’m not copying and republishing part of Google Maps, I’m publishing a work of art that has a useless portion of a map in the background.
The question isn’t just of Google’s TOS, but also of Fair Use. Take for example that Google itself takes entirely copyrighted images, shrinks them down, and lays them out in rows and columns for people to search. This is considered acceptable because the result doesn’t impact the marketability of the original images in a negative way, and because the images are transformed from pictures to simplified versions that are useless for any other purpose than getting a general idea of what sort of image it may be.
You’re using their images to help illustrate your comic. My first brush guess is that fair use is going to be a tough argument here. But from your description, I don’t have a very good idea of what you’re doing.
Either way, before you actually start distributing this comic, you need to get your own counsel.
Thumbnailing of photos by a search engine is fair use, but there are a lot of other factors involved, a big one being that they’re doing it as a form of indexing to help people find images that other people have put on the Web to be found. That sounds nothing like what you’re doing.
Fair use is a nuanced thing, usually determined on a case-by-case basis, and you may need a proper lawyer to tell you whether your specific case qualifies.
Additionally, copyright law and Google’s Terms of Service are two related but ultimately separate things. Even if you’re ok under US copyright law, what you’re doing is still not ok under Google’s ToS. In addition to the previous issues, you’re also likely liable under 2(e), making Content allowing for mass download, and 2(f) removing copyright notices and 4(e) using the Content in disallowed ways.
The answer, IMHO, is a very clear “No, you may not do this.”
But, again, whether Google is ever going to try to enforce that on you is questionable. And whether the courts would agree that their ToS is enforceable at all is also questionable.
For example, by the very nature of the Internet, all information must be downloaded (and thus “copied” to your computer) for your browser to display it. Google’s own business model precludes 100% enforcement of that clause. Similarly, if you print out driving directions and hand them to a driver, that’s “redistribution of content”.
My IANAL, semi-educated guess is that Google has all the fancy wording in their disclaimers for protection against worst-case scenarios. I seriously doubt they’re going to care about a random webcomic using a Street View background… but you’ve been warned and you’ve been given alternatives. What you do at this point is up to you.
I forgot to mention something: You could always write them and specifically request permission for this use. They might just be happy to say yes (or not; I have no idea). Worth a shot.
P.S. Street view, thought differently, could also be considered a photographic layer of a 3D map. It’s not like Google just has a bunch of random street photos lying around in a gallery; it’s an integral part of their Maps service. It would be Content regardless, but in this case it’s also part of their mapping system.
Here’s a simple solution. For a fee of $1.00 per photo, plus travel expenses and a per-diem for meals and lodging, I will go to the location that you find on Google Streetview and re-photograph the area seen in the Streetview image and e-mail you the picture. I’ll release any rights to the photos I’ve taken (that’s what the $1.00 is for) to you, and you can do whatever you want with them.
You may have to get permission from the people in the photo to use their picture, but if you’re going to redraw the background, you can always leave the people out, or draw in your own people.
The photos I take may or may not be identical to the pictures on Streetview, depending on how recently the Streetview pictures were taken. If you like (and this may solve the problem with the people in the picture), I can blur out the faces of the people in the picture along with the hubcaps on any automobiles.
But seriously…
What would Google charge for use of one of their images? Do they even offer that option? Would they do it for $1.00? Or would they charge $1000.00? How much would they sue you for if you used it without permission (and they found out)?
I could realistically get up in the morning, travel to some point 1000 miles away to shoot a photo of an intersection and be back home in bed the same night for a total cost of a few hundred dollars. You could do the same. Could Google come after your or me for doing that? What if you got there by using their maps?
How much is this actually worth to you?
With a resource like the SDMB, you could probably get a number of people to do this for your without any of them ever leaving their home town, and some of us probably wouldn’t charge anything for it. Hell, I’d provide street pictures of New Orleans and the surrounding area for free.
My setting is in Tokyo. While we do have Dopers there, having a 3D or semi-3D setting that I can fairly freely place characters in would be massively handy. If Google had the option to purchase images, I would consider buying them, but I don’t think it would be realistic to ask someone to be running all over Tokyo snapping off photos several times a week for years on end.
If you are wiling to spend what google spent to get that result in court, be sure to let us know how it turns out.
You might be able to make a fair use case, but it would turn on far more detail than “its a web comic fer chrissakes” which seems to be your claim so far…perhaps you should ask an IP attorney familiar with the law, who represents your interests because you pay him or her to do so.
Well, that complicates things and not in your favor. Japanese jurisdiction may be entirely different, corporate structure may be different, laws and fair use concepts may be different.
That’s not my claim. My claim is that since I know it is fair use for an artist to take and copy a single page from a book and paste it to an artwork because that doesn’t impact the book’s market and is transformative, then it seems likely that I’m doing the equivalent here, at least until such a point as Google does sell their images for such a purpose as I’m hoping to use it – because at that point, my use does impact their market.
Either way, I’ve filled out their “Request Permission” form. So we’ll see.
That’s only some of the criteria for fair use. There are more than that. And I’m sure things get even more complicated when you factor it international laws…