Thread:Semanticdrifter/@comment-1474707-20130122000304/@comment-4811793-20130122002912

Hmm. That's an interesting question. Screenplays and scripts are absolutely copyrightable. I suppose there are two possibilities: #1. You find and publish the script to an episode, as written by the staff (or) #2. You watch the episode and transcribe it yourself, adding stage direction as you saw it and doing a rough capture of the dialogue.

Number 1 is much, much less likely to be a fair use. Especially if published in its entirety. The end result would be an exact copy of a protected work. There is almost no chance a fair use argument would suceed in this case.

Number 2 is more likely to qualify as a fair use, but it is by no means a slam dunk. The argument would be that you have transformed the show itself from its original state into a new format. The bigger the gap between your "transcription" and the actual screenplay, the more likely the fair use argument would suceed.

Of course the problem with fair use is that it is hard to predict with any certainty, so I can't say definitively.

If we received a DMCA notice for a transcript, we would absolutely act on it.

I would say that the copyright holders of a film or television show are generally much more focused on dealing with infringements of the product that they actually sell: the film or the television episode itself. Because, as far as I am aware, there isn't much of a market for selling the scripts separately, I have not seen copyright holders aggressively pursue possible infringements of their scripts and screenplays.