Fair Use and copyright violation

[Erinna1112]

When I protested the inclusion of entire articles in threads in this forum, I was informed that "fair use" laws may apply. I disagree.

"The "fair use" exemption to (U.S.) copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's important so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works -- only the ability to express other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. Are you reproducing an article from the New York Times because you needed to in order to criticise the quality of the New York Times, or because you couldn't find time to write your own story, or didn't want your readers to have to register at the New York Times web site? The first is probably fair use, the others probably aren't.

Fair use is usually a short excerpt and almost always attributed. (One should not use more of the work than is necessary to make the commentary.) It should not harm the commercial value of the work -- in the sense of people no longer needing to buy it (which is another reason why reproduction of the entire work is a problem.)" (excerpt from the following URL: http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html)

This site is not parody (ok, sometimes) nor news, commentary, research, or an educational institution.

Someone seeing an entire article on this site would likely not go to the site of the copyright owner. Therefore, this site is a competing source for the information. This tends to weigh in favor of the copyright holder - permission must be obtained.

Fair Use test

It's easiest to simply post a paragraph or two (a "short excerpt") and a link to the original publication.

[Tombstone]

Erinna1112 wrote: When I protested the inclusion of entire articles in threads in this forum, I was informed that "fair use" laws may apply. I disagree.

"The "fair use" exemption to (U.S.) copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's important so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works -- only the ability to express other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. Are you reproducing an article from the New York Times because you needed to in order to criticise the quality of the New York Times, or because you couldn't find time to write your own story, or didn't want your readers to have to register at the New York Times web site? The first is probably fair use, the others probably aren't.

Fair use is usually a short excerpt and almost always attributed. (One should not use more of the work than is necessary to make the commentary.) It should not harm the commercial value of the work -- in the sense of people no longer needing to buy it (which is another reason why reproduction of the entire work is a problem.)" (excerpt from the following URL: http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html)

This site is not parody (ok, sometimes) nor news, commentary, research, or an educational institution.

Someone seeing an entire article on this site would likely not go to the site of the copyright owner. Therefore, this site is a competing source for the information. This tends to weigh in favor of the copyright holder - permission must be obtained.

Fair Use test

It's easiest to simply post a paragraph or two (a "short excerpt") and a link to the original publication.
I agree with this. FG is, however, a commentary site (discussion forum) and is used by many in an educational sense.

I think FG will be posting a posting guideline. Posting a short quip, then linking to the original story is the right way to do it.

[Erinna1112]

Tombstone wrote: I agree with this. FG is, however, a commentary site (discussion forum) and is used by many in an educational sense.

I think FG will be posting a posting guideline. Posting a short quip, then linking to the original story is the right way to do it.
Just for everyone's information...I'm honestly not trying to tell anyone what to do, or be the "posting police." It's like I said before...I'm an artist. I take intellectual property concepts very seriously. I was just backing up what I said earlier, but trying not to hijack Bill Sikes's thread.

I think that the "educational" test for the Fair Use provision would tend to favor actual learning institutions. I can see the "commentary" use for this site; I would think that it wouldn't pass the "educational" test, tho.

[anastrophe]

a somewhat more detailed - while still accessible to the layman - explanation of fair use principles is at the nolo press site. unfortunately, they use dynamic cold fusion web pages, so i don't know if this URL will stay valid:





http://www.nolo.com/lawcenter/ency/arti ... 5C119B5806





however, a search on google of 'fair use rules' brings that up as the third hit.