Q: Making a book about film locations in LA. Can I include a still from a movie as (transformative) fair use?
I plan on selling the book eventually. There won't be more than one still from any 1 movie.
An example would be that I would have a page that shows Monument Valley and there would be a still from the Forrest Gump running scene on the page. The text of the page would describe the location + may include directions to get there, info about the film location etc.
A:
Use of a single still from a movie to identify a scene and location is definitely "fair use" under the copyright law; and you correctly observe that the use in a book to illustrate factual exposition is "transformative" use of the original copyrighted material.
It would be prudent to credit the filmmaker/studio's copyright in the film.
As a cinephile myself, I find the book concept very interesting and believe it may be well received by others such as film schools.
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