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Today, it's illegal to copy a videocassette. No one has a fair use to copy a videocassette. If you lose it, you get another one, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's what people have been doing for generations.

Jack, Is that you?

"Fair use," in and of itself, is nowhere clearly defined in the copyright law

I can assure you that several of the examples you cite are most certainly not Fair Use

Sorry, you're wrong.

"the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."

Sounds pretty clear to me. Here are some more thoughts from the EFF.

"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."

Jack Valenti, 1982

'I wasn't opposed to the VCR.'
Jack Valenti, 2003 Click

Therefore, he wasn't opposed to the Boston Strangler. QED.

Couldn't this be placed in a more, you know, useful location? I hate to offend the New Mexicanites but why is this not in San Diego where I live?

The albuquerque-Santa Fe metro area not only has two national laboratories Sandia and LANL, but it has a huge INTEL factory in Rio Rancho.

New Mexico also has, despite being named The dumbest state in the US(I dislike harvard...almost as much as I dislike MIT...) New Mexico has the highest concentration of Ph.D.'s in the United States today.

Get real...New Mexico is WAYYYY more relevant than San Diego...besides the Chargers and Aztecs both suck.

Van los lobos, baten a aztecas!

BTW it is New Mexicans, NOT New Mexicanites

Originally posted at http://george.hotelling.net/90percent/linkage/pr0n _leads_the_way.php:

I found a pretty insightful rant (safe for work) copied from the business guy at the altporn site Suicide Girls. I wish the RIAA would start tracking how people hear about the albums that they buy, so that they could stop freaking out.

Porn has a long history of figuring out how to use new media to their advantage. Perhaps because porn is driven by our basest instinct we understand it on far deeper levels than widget building, and can apply that understanding to things that we don't fully comprehend intellectually. Maybe it's just because there's such intense competition in the industry that forces companies to innovate. I'm sure there's a "free hand of the market" joke in there, but I'll be damned if I can find it.

The VCR was largely decried by the MPAA because they saw it as cutting into their profits. When the VCR was still new, MPAA president Jack Valenti said the VCR is [to the movie industry]...as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone. (which of course means that he wasn't opposed to the VCR). A driver of early VCR purchases was being able to watch porn movies without having to go to theaters filled with creepier people than you. Fast forward 20 years and that Boston strangler makes up a huge portion of movie studio profits.

While I'm skeptical that porn can drive any technology - who really needs porn on their cellphone at blazing speeds - the porn industry typically ahead of the curve. Let's hope the RIAA realizes this and stops suing 12 year old girls.

Ah, but you're forgetting the wise words that the ever insightful Jack Valenti once pronounced: "But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever. It never wears out. In the digital world, we don't need back-ups, because a digital copy never wears out. It is timeless." ;-)

It will be because judges can't read, or have been bought. I know Jack Valenti is out their trying to convince the world that we just mad up fair use:
JV: What is fair use? Fair use is not a law. There's nothing in law.

Apparently he hasn't read Title 17 down to section 107. The section titled:

Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

But any one who can read that far would also hit [Title 17] section 104 which contains:

(1) ENFORCEMENT OF COPYRIGHT IN RESTORED WORKS IN THE ABSENCE OF A RELI- ANCE PARTY.--As against any party who is not a reliance party, the remedies pro- vided in chapter 5 of this title shall be available on or after the date of restoration of a restored copyright with respect to an act of infringement of the restored copyright that is commenced on or after the date of restoration.[emphasis mine]

Makes it pretty clear that even if Fox got their copyright restored, that damages for acts prior to that time are clearly unavailable.

I for one hope they get their bottoms spanked in court for this.