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Imagine you see some picture that should not appear in normal circumstances, e.g. seemingly when graphics card or some program malfunctioned and display nonsense.

For example, overheated graphics card crashed and the system frozen, displaying severely corrupted image (it may look unrelated to what it should display, but also may be related).

What license is such picture of? Can it be included and used somewhere? Should it be similar to just photographing nature? Does it matter what was running before the crash (e.g. proprietary game with proprietary artwork that can sneak into resulting image)?

+1  A: 

(I originally posted this as a comment, because I didn't think it was enough of an "answer." I did some more googling, but didn't come up with much.)

I would guess that the rules for what you want are the same rules as for 'found art' that happens to contain something copyrighted. I don't know where you can find those rules though. Perhaps this Wikipedia article on Appropriation might be a good place to start.

ptomato
I think the main difference with Appropriation is that it happens completely without user's creative efforts (the only bit of it is to guess that it is something worthy and avoid just discarding it).
Vi
Well, most people would discard the screen display of an overheated graphics card.
ptomato
OK, considering: 1. If [almost] no foreign artwork is seen (just something randomish) then like "photographing nature"; 2. If recognizable parts of multiple artworks got mixed in queer fashion then this Appropriation thing; 3. If it is just slightly spoiled one artwork then it is a derivative work => copyvio.
Vi