Fair Use for Presentations?

Fubar asks: "The company I work for provides training 'workshops' to various folks in the finance industry. The folks who give the presentations during the workshops are considering adding short clips from various movies to help illustrate their points. In my searching, I have found evidence that basically seems to suggest the practice COULD be either a) fine or b) illegal. Not exactly the black & white answer I was hoping to find."

Comments

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

I recommend hiring a regular attorney. Those fucking attorneys are real assholes.

Re:OK, here's my fair use example

[AKAImBatman]

You've never heard the Pot Roast joke? What's this world coming to?! We'd better correct that immediately! :-)

The joke goes like this:

A newly-wed husband noticed that every time his wife cooked a ham, she would first cut off a quarter of it and put it in another pan. She would then put both pans into the oven to cook them. After pondering over why she might be doing this, he finally decided to ask her, "Honey, why do you always put a quarter of the ham in another pan?"

"Why, I don't know," she replied. "My mother always did it that way, so that's the way I do it."

Being a curious fellow, he convinced his wife to ask her mother next time she saw her.

A few weeks later, she's talking with her mom and asks about the ham. "Mother, why did you always cut off a quarter of the ham before cooking it?"

"Why, I don't know," she replied. "My mother always did it that way, so that's the way I do it!"

When she related this to her husband, they both became even more curious! After much wrangling about bothering her grandmother (who was currently residing in a nursing home, bless her heart) they decided to pay her a visit and ask about the ham.

A few days later, they visit her at the home with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. She is duely impressed and asks to what she owes the visit. The couple, feeling a bit embarrassed, beat around the bush for awhile. After a bit of chatting, they finally get up the nerve to ask.

"Grandmother, we've been wondering. I learned from mother to always cut off a quarter of the ham before cooking it. When I asked her why she did it, she said that she learned it from you. So we're kind of curious, why do you cut off a quarter of the ham before cooking it?"

"What?!?" she exclaims, "You came all this way to ask me that?!?"

"Um. Yes grandma," the granddaughter replies sheepishly.

Grandma huffed a little at the rediculous question, shook her head, and then finally uttered her answer,

"There's only one reason why I always cut a quarter of the ham off before I cooked it. My pan was too small!"

I leave you to figure out the moral of the story. :-)

Re:OK, here's my fair use example

[AKAImBatman]

I see you cut and pasted this from a spell-checker-free site while I was fooling with telling a story and HTML formatting.

Nope. I quoted it from memory on the spot, adding my own embellishments. I waited around a good 10 minutes or before I start, just to make sure you weren't posting it. Then I went ahead and typed it up.

Next time, HURRY UP!

:D