Was this done using the DVDs? I'm curious about any potential licensing issues with the screen caps and subtitles. Did you have to get permission/sign something - or does this fall under fair use?
No way this is licensed (no copyright notice, even; not even a mention of Fox), and no way it is fair use. It has frame-by-frame, full resolution images and full transcripts of every episode up for browsing. This is textbook mass copyright infringement. Short of offering unlicensed video downloads for a fee, it could hardly be more clear-cut.
Yeah, it's cool, I get it, but you can't just steal and redistribute content en masse for your cool project. Well, he did, but I expect he'll be hearing from Fox's lawyers soon.
It is arguably fair use in the U.S. I don't think there is enough case law to be sure. It's hard to predict how it would go in litigation. I think you're right that the defendants wouldn't have a particularly strong case, but they wouldn't have the weakest.
The courts have generally judged significant "transformation" of the source material to be powerful in determining fair use. I think that would be in their benefit. Also it could be argued that this has very little effect on the market for the original copyrighted material, which would be in their favor. Of course, the copyright holder would see and argue it differently if they choose to sue. And the "the amount and substantiality of the portion taken" would not look good for the defendants -- but even though some common belief focuses on this factor almost exclusively -- thinking as long as you copy only 10 pages or whatever you're good, and if you don't you're definitely not -- that's not how it works, it's just one factor, and one that the courts in the past couple decades have somewhat de-emphasized.
But I don't think we can say "no way it is fair use", or "it could hardly be more clear cut." It could go either way. Fair use in the U.S. for novel things, not already well established as fair use or not, almost always looks like this.
Counterpoint: copying every single page of every book and making it searchable can be fair use. It just takes only 10 years of litigation and appeals to determine that. See Authors Guild v. Google.
https://www.eff.org/document/ruling-appeals-court
Point is, the law is hardly clear cut and never is with new technologies. Without someone willing to take a risk and develop a potentially infringing technology we would never have had VCRs, MP3 players, YouTube.... I applaud the creators for making an incredibly useful resource and I hope if they do face legal threats they get a zealous pro-bono defense from someone like the EFF or Larry Lessig.
