Mainstream News Article Talks Up The Importance Of Fair Use
from the you-don't-see-that-every-day dept
jupiterkansas was the first of a few of you to send over this article about a Kansas City Star article praising fair use and talking up how important it is to culture.Watch tonight’s “Daily Show” and count the number of TV, movie and music clips you see or hear during the episode. Ten? Twenty?The article is pretty long and detailed (and quotes some of my favorite experts, including Nancy Baym and Patricia Aufderheide -- whose new book, written with Peter Jaszi, called Reclaiming Fair Use is sitting on my desk -- though I haven't had a chance to read it yet). It does note that fair use is still sometimes a bit hit or miss in the courts, but overall this is a really comprehensive article on the subject. It's just kind of surprising to see it in a big newspaper. Even though fair use is increasingly important to people, it's just not the sort of thing most in the media seemed interested in writing about -- even if they're covering copyright related stories.
While you’re doing that, note how often Stewart makes fun of the subject of the clip. (If he’s talking about CNN or Fox News Channel, this part will be easy.) Do the same for companion show “The Colbert Report.”
Now, guess how often Stewart and Colbert ask their attorneys to clear the rights to all those copyrighted clips.
America’s most acclaimed satirists turn out to also be our most powerful exploiters of “fair use,” the legal loophole that permits use of copyrighted works without the onerous and often expensive process of rights clearance.
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hahaha ok
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security certificate failed
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Fair Use
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Re: Also please deal with false DMCA takedowns
What is that, $150,000 per false DMCA takedown filed?
It also might not hurt to put SOME TEETH into that "under penalty of perjury" thingy.
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Re: Re: Also please deal with false DMCA takedowns
My favorite remedy would be that the statutory damages for each false DMCA takedown are equal to the statutory damages for each instance of copyright infringement.
What is that, $150,000 per false DMCA takedown filed?
It also might not hurt to put SOME TEETH into that "under penalty of perjury" thingy.
Agreed. While Lenz v. Universal shows that section 512 can bite back, it is so rare because the law is not really designed to care about fair use. I'm not sure about the limit you suggest (although I'm not entirely against it), but some very real penalties for false, and even erroneous, DMCA takedowns are in order.
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This is funny since it's really the other way around, and copyright is the legal loophole that limits [fair] use and causes onerous and often expensive processes.
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Re:
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Legal loophole?
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Re: Legal loophole?
Justice Stevens was one of the gentleman that gave us that flexibility of fair use by giving the 4 tests that became the standard for it.
However, if you were to practice it, you quickly see the failures of fair use as a defense. You have to raise it, and a judge has to accept it. It was one of the problems of the filesharing cases of Tenenbaum, Harper, and Thomas.
So while it's not necessarily the law as I would hope, it is still fairly important if a judge recognizes it.
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Re: Legal loophole?
True... though historically it did come from a loophole. Fair use was a common law/judge-made concept, and only codified in 1976.
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fair use is not a loophole
Loopholes are odd quirks of the law, regarded as being somehow unfair or unintended, which the unscrupulous can exploit to their advantage.
Fair use is and always has been a part of copyright law since the Constitution first defined copyrights as intended for the benefit of society, not the protection of IP owners.
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Re: fair use is not a loophole
I wouldn't say that "fair use" was designed from the start, because it really wasn't...
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Mike, it's like you just don't understand the basics of fair use.
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Fair use doesn't mean "any use". The dancing baby thing is a good example of "any use" which isn't generally permitted. Sorry!
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Uh...why? It's a baby...dancing to a song. So what?
Why is that not fair use, and the indiscriminate use of clips from several sources in a comedy show, as done by the daily show/colbert report, is?
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It's a girl, dancing to a song.
It's a TV show with a girl dancing to a song.
It's called "dancing with the stars".
Which one is "fair use"?
They are all, after all, just a video of someone dancing to music.
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http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
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It's a good example of the massive over-reach of the current copyright system.
It's a good example of how rightsholders over-value their content, i.e. implying that particular piece of music added value to the clip.
It's a good example of rightsholders failing to see how this was essentially free advertising for "their" song, the use of which did not disadvantage them in any way, shape or form.
It's a good example of completely missing the point about why people post videos like this, i.e. to share a funny moment with family, not to gain some tangible benefit from the "use" of the music.
It's a good example of the many reasons why the public's respect for copyright is at all all-time low.
It's a good example of why so many people have made a conscious decision to not do anything that might financially benefit perpetrators of copyright abuse, i.e. buying their product!
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"Bashing copyright just because it makes media companies rich..."
Article is a bit nuanced compared to Mike's views.
But it just about makes me be against fair use with this:
' 2004 Danger Mouse creates “The Grey Album,” a mashup of the Beatles’ “White Album” and Jay-Z’s “Black Album.” '
Ewww, yuck. Just because allowed under fair use doesn't mean should be done. It's like the deliberate breeding of already nasty dogs to further enhance nasty features. And even more disgusting for "humans" to facilitate by hand.
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Re: "Bashing copyright just because it makes media companies rich..."
Sooo... we should outlaw things you don't like or find disgusting?
Or even entertain the idea of this?
I find that idea rather disgusting for "humans" to facilitate by hand and posting as a comment on an opinion blog. The government should restrict your rights in this.
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http://msmignoresit.blogspot.com/2011/09/appointed-bureaucracy.html
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Reclaiming Fair Use and rule of reason
I think that some of the debate in these comments will be helped by a quick scan of Peter Jaszi's and my new book, Reclaiming Fair Use(http://centerforsocialmedia.org/reclaiming and http://www.facebook.com/ReclaimingFairUse). It discusses the case of Lenz v Universal (baby dancing to Prince), among other things. Refresher: EFF and the mom, Stephanie Lenz, sued Universal for its takedown (her countertakedown made it go back up). The case is still stalled out; Universal is dragging out the process after losing in interim decisions. But the fact that Universal got egg on its face has certainly made it clear to lots of others that incidental quotation is perfectly within fair use. (You can also see explanations why that's so, made by doc filmmakers and remixers in two codes of best practices in fair use, on our website, centerforsocialmedia.org/fair-use.) We're excited to see more and more people realizing that there's a pretty comfortable center zone in fair use that's easy to understand and use, and of course, the more people who use it, the bigger that zone gets. Fair use is a muscle; use it or lose it!
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