Your argument is all over the place.
Do you mean in print media days when magazines were explicitly given publisher approved screenshots as part of a presspack, a tradition that still continues to this day?
Or do you mean when reviewers are given copies of games to make reviews from, and are under strict publisher guidelines as to what content they are allowed to show or discuss as part of their review, and frequently subject to embargo as to when they can say it?
Because yes, every gaming mag had permission to print screenshots, often written and explicit.
That's how it works.
I am talking about joe blow making reviews or print magazines that would publish with their OWN screens, not just pre-approved screens (In many older gaming magazines they'd have funny screens or joke screens and things from games, mainly in the backs or things).
You are really confusing the law of fair use with publisher backed embargo's and agreements tehy have with gaming journalist to provide them with the pre-release games and information.
If you review a game or do something that makes a publisher "upset" do you know what they can do? Ask Jim Sterling, they can black-list you, not invite you to any of their pre-release events and won't provide you with "free" games to review before the games are released.
Do you know what they CAN'T do? Stop you from reviewing their game or using screens/video snippits from said game. This is fair use.
The ONLY reason publishers have embargo's and "agreements" with gaming journalist is for reviewers to get the games early and get to press in time when the game is released.
They have 0 legal grounds to win legal action against a reviewer if you review their game when its released. This is clear cut fair use and has held up time and again under the law.
Political parodies are something entirely different.
You could have a political cartoonist copy the broad likeness of the avengers and have a panel about, fuck, the usual unfunny stuff political cartoonists consists of; a caption saying "Obama assembles his anti-deficit task force" and some chitauri with caricatured heads of congress surrounding them.
That's a vast fucking difference to making a coffee table book called "Avengers Visual Compendium" filled with drawings of the Avengers and a fake Marvel logo on the cover.
It's more akin to a educational books.
Educating people and showing the historical evolution of the games and art style over the course of the console while providing commentary and other info on the graphics and games.
This is why you can take a book on cinematography, grab frames from various movies (even those still protected by copyright) and use them to illustrate certain cinematography styles and examples as long as you are doing so to provide commentary and using it for educating people or showing the historical context.
As someone posted above with the Bleem ruling, a screenshot from a video game is a very insignificant part of a video game.
(Or Sega doesn't what Nintendoes, I should say... xD)
