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Comment by chris_wot | Hacker News Reader

I feel a great deal of sympathy for the photographer, but how do you know the use of the screenshots are fair use?

because it trivially meets factors for fair use. It is a very small portion of the copyrighted work and is not a substitute for the work. A couple screenshots from a TV show does not lower the market value for the TV show. TV Land isn't going to stop airing Gunsmoke because someone posted a couple screenshots online.

I must have missed something somewhere - doesn’t the article say the lawsuit doesn’t state how the images were used?

unless the images were a screenshot of each frame of the episode, how exactly they were used doesn't matter for the cited clause of fair use. in what way could a small number of screenshots ever be a substitute for an episode of a tv show?

Small and "in-substantial" are different. If you're selling screenshots as memorabilia, say (posters, tshirts, mugs), then they're likely to be substantial in that context and IMO even with USA's relatively liberal fair use a court is likely to rule against it.

Of course trademark may also come in to play depending on the content of the screenshots themselves.

Your substitution test is useful, and interesting, but it's not a test that determines copyright infringement.

Then you misunderstand fair use. Fair use doctrine is far more complicated than just meeting one of the tests. I used to have to adjudicate Fair Use images on Wikipedia, and believe me the grounds for valid Fair Use is more complex than you appear to believe.

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