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Yoko Ono/EMI Suit Exposes Fair Use Flaw
Ian Lamont writes "Yoko Ono and EMI Records have backed down from their suit against the makers of a documentary film who used a 15-second fragment of a John Lennon song — but only after a Stanford Law School group got involved. Even though the use of the clip was clearly Fair Use, the case exposed a huge problem with the doctrine: It's becoming too expensive for people to actually take advantage of what is supposed to be a guaranteed right. Ironically, the song in question was Imagine."
If you can legally use a piece of a track under 'Fair Use', is it possible to create a legal P2P system where each user hosts (ie. makes available) this amount?
Could I host 30 seconds legally, and you host 30 seconds legally, and Bob hosts 30 sec and Jill hosts 30 sec?
Everyone in the country could host 30 seconds of every track in the world.
Could this work?
CH
If it wern't for Yoko's history, I'd wonder if this was more about stopping that terrible film from being associated with Lennon than any real copyright concern.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Would it really be unfeasible or inadvisable, in cases as clear-cut as this, to turn up to court yourself, sans lawyer, and say "This clearly falls under fair use. Can I go home now?"
Except McCain and the Republicans are just as liberal as the Democrats these days. Conservatism is all but dead, replace with the bogus neocons who think that you can get the benefits of capitalism under a welfare-state system. Check out this very interesting article on the subject:
The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism
The answer is no. In England and Canada, the loser pays the other side's legal fees. In the US, that is not the rule. And, yes it is a serious problem.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
'Fair Use' is what's left of the right to copy after most of it has been suspended to create a privilege to benefit publishers (in the belief this ultimately benefits the public).
You have a right to copy anything you create, purchase, or discover. The state has suspended this right apart from those few exceptions it terms 'fair use', but those exceptions only come into effect as defences after you have been prosecuted for copyright infringement, not before. There can be no 'fair use' without infringement.
It would be better to demand the complete restoration of the right to copy, and to abolish copyright, than to quibble about whether certain exceptions should be acknowledged prior to the commencement of any litigation.
When did you last see a poor person suing someone to intimidate, send a political statement, or to put someone out of business?
That if a copyright holder repeatedly uses legal harassment to prevent obviously legal uses of its copyright, perhaps it should lose that copyright. All you would need is one or two lost copyrights and you would see media company behavior dramatically change.
I wondered how long it would take before someone got a dig in about the film and insinuated that it deserved it. Congrats! Within 5 posts too boot! We should really have a drinking game designed around shit like this.
The article asks, "Is Fair Use decided by who has the most money?"
The answer, of course, is yes.
Money decides nearly everything.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
that's the problem with how fair use is legally defined. copyright laws are meant to encourage cultural contribution by giving copyright holders the right to control the distribution of their work for a limited time, after which it is released into public domain. but the duration of legal copyrights has more than quadrupled since the 1800's from 28 years to 115 years.
fair use was established because copyright laws had been corrupted from their original purpose and no longer served public interest. copyrights, like patents, have been increasingly used to take away consumer rights. to restore copyrights to their original purpose, fair use was defined to allow some copying & distribution without having to obtain consent from copyright holders.
playing a 15-second clip of a song for the express purpose of criticizing the views it espouses is a clear case of legal fair use. whether or not a partial reproduction is used in a positive or negative light plays no role in whether it is fair use or not.
Yet there are scientists on all sides. The idea that you would, or anyone, be the judge of another person's belief system and would disallow it is absurd to me. I don't think you can justify it to me, ever. If you want to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster than, by all means, feel free to do so and feel free to teach it to your children. My belief system, in Boston though not any more, was Bokanonism. So long as clear lines of what is and isn't allowed (say teaching children that "that touch is not a bad touch") then you, the government, the neighbor, the anything or anyone has absolutely no right in the home or in the raising of a child.
I can't tell if you're pulling my leg or if you're just that stuck? It baffles me that you're actually advocating that teaching a child religion is abuse when it is so basic a human right to have your beliefs and raise your young to believe as you do that, wow... I just can't fathom it.
My children are encouraged to enjoy science and religion and to pick what they believe in on their own. My own theocracy is inclined to believe in a creator or creators but certainly not in any sense that the Bible (as is currently understood in most religions) as opposed to a big bang. Hell, I even believe in evolution. I don't take a whole lot of stock in the whole heaven or hell thing and I have my doubts about some of the interpretations of the teachings of this Christ person/god as those don't even begin to make a whole lot of sense when they then let Paul add shit to it.
I have sat down and explained, to great length, the Christian religion, the differences between it and the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, some of Buddha's teachings, Islam, and even shown them what I know of Wicca while being careful to explain that they shouldn't remind the believes in Wicca that their religion wasn't actually invented until sometime in the mid 1900's.
For the most part they seem to have adopted an amalgam similar to my own and seem to enjoy attending church on Sunday. I don't go unless they make me take them.
To cite science as more than a belief system is faulty IMHO unless one only agrees to believe in proofs. We have people who believe in string theory. They are religious in that sense. Until it is entirely disproven it is theory. Gotta say that the religious folks got a hand up there, that's tough to disprove and that's what faith requires as it is equally difficult to prove.
However, the feeling of security and the belief that they've got something to look forward to after this life is something I'd not wish to take away from anyone. If they want to believe that then they are free to do so. If they want to teach that children that same thinking/belief they're free to do so. They will, in most cases, be exposed to the alternatives even if the parents don't like it.
I seriously hope you're not advocating the removal of one of the most basic of human rights and are not advocating thought police in the name of protecting the children.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."