Slashdot Mirror
Arguing the Case for Fair-Use by Example?
bobej1977 asks: "Happened to be perusing my local newspaper website and came across a link to one of those corny news websites, a la Dave Barry. Included were a couple of funny Fair-Use related stories. This got me thinking about how it's often easier to explain the idea of fair-use in terms of the absurdities that occur when people stop using their common sense. Anybody else have any interesting links/stories?" Read on for examples of what bobej means.
bobej1977's article examples:
"In December, Australia's TV Channel 7 reported that many schools across the country, at the behest of the Australasian Performing Rights Association, were discouraging parents from making keepsake movies of their kids' appearances in Christmas musicals, because recording the holiday songs might violate copyright law. [Seven Network Ltd. (Australia), 12-22-03]"and
"In February 2004, according to a New York Times report, cuts from 'White Album' by the band Sonic Youth were being listed for downloading on Apple's iTunes online store, and included was 'Silence,' a 63-second cut consisting of no sound at all, for which fans were nonetheless expected to pay the regular iTunes price of 99 cents. (In a subsequent clarification, a Sonic Youth spokesman said 'Silence' would only be sold to purchasers who bought all of the album's cuts.) [New York Times, 2-9-04, 2-16-04]"Are these decent examples of the absurd, that make a fair to strong case for fair-use? What examples might you have?
might be singing songs in nursery schools to celebrate St Patty's Day. Wasn't there somewhere where nursery rhymes were required to pay royalty fees, even though the songs themselves might in excess of 200 years old?
There are some good examples of how crazy copyright law can get in this article by Jonathan Zittrain. My favorite is the bit about Teddy Ruxpin, the toy bear who moves in response to the sound on a tape put into the cassette player in his back. (Putting a tape of, say, Madonna in him and turning him on constitutes a performance of the work, or some such.) Also talks about TV sizes in bars, the "strangler" VHS comment, filesharing, and others. This was linked to in a previous Slashdot story.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
So, you like to sing at camp?
-- MarkusQ
Wouldn't reverse engineering something like a device driver, assorted hardware, etc. be considered by some a violation for fair-use?
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
"I know obscenity use when I see it..." --Potter Stewart
s/obscenity/fair use/
My father is a blogger.
there's an art show out there called "Illegal Art" that's chock full of art works that "test the limits" so-to-speak. An example would be that drawing of various Disney characters in curious positions. The html file of DeCSS source code laid out like the DVD logo is also part of the tour. I dont have time to dig it up now, but they have a website and there are occasional news articles in local papers when the show tours that locality.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
The CORRECT quote is from Justice Potter Stewart (Supreme Court, Jacobellis v. Ohio):
The second example of purchasing a silent track isn't as ridiculous as it sounds (pun intended). There are people who will intentionally pay for what they consider to be art, or at least to reward the creator(s) of what they consider to be art. A silent track certainly falls into this category.
What you failed to mention is that the track violates Copyright law. Here's a note about a related case concerning silence, plus a thread on SlashNOT that includes links to the CNN article. That is the part that is really sad.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
A few years back, before we even got into the big issue of online music sharing, I remember hearing about churches getting sued for using copyrighted music for worship and reprinting the lyrics for all of the congregation (or even putting the lyrics on a transparency for an overhead projector) without permission from the copyright holder or even a blanket license like the CCL.
A friend of mine and I were both musicians and worship leaders at the time and he was the one who told me about the issue. He said he'd probably sue to get reimbursed for copyright violations, even from a church. I still don't think I would, but then I never depended on my music for my livelihood.
Many years later this ethical/spiritual debate was brought into the online world when P2P filesharing service ZPoc was shut down. I didn't know about this one myself until after the fact. I think it's an interesting area of the filesharing and fair use debates, since the issue of morality vs. legality is often brought up on both sides.
Alex.
is STILL copyrighted. That's why every restaurant has their own goofy birthday song instead of the universally recognized happy birthday song.
If your kid has a birthday party and you hire a clown to come in and he sings Happy Birthday, the law was broken. What kind of bullshit is that?
Read on for examples of what bobej means.
So, what does "bobej" mean? I couldn't find any clarification on a Google search. "jebob" returned a cute baby, but I don't think he's posting on Slashdot yet.
Inquiring minds want to know! And they have karma to burn!
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Bravo, well done. Post about something interesting, claim to not have the link, then post again after having miraculously searched and found it. Double the points! I predict this will be the new method of choice for whores all around! You, sir, are a pioneer.
Probably because the name of the mountain it is on or near is "Mount Diablo"
I nearly killed myself on a bike coming down it once. Went to boarding school at it's base.
From 3200 feet, you can see San Francisco and Nevada from the top in
clear weather, lots of fossils and a great place to hang glide
I would have thought John Cage would sue them blind for selling a track of
nothing but silence and not paying him royalties.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
They also have a library of audio cds and dvds for music history courses. The professors used to be given a stack of cds to teach the class with (how can you teach a music history course without music, right?) but now they're given a single CD with mp3s. I imagine eventually the DVDs will be put in a compilation as well...as the professor explained to me it its better to SHOW the students ziggy stardust then just play it for them.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley