copyright info

[lscogbill]

I've seen a couple of posts regarding copyrights. In copyright laws, there is a clause known as "fair use." The information below is from Stanford University's law school. Since the purpose of this board is to inform the public and provide a means of comment/criticism, almost anything we post would probably fall under fair use and it's OK to post even if the info is copyrighted. I only included the info on comment and criticsm because there are few here who parody (although they are protected as well) Here is the information:

In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and "transformative" purpose such as to comment upon, criticize or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. Another way of putting this is that fair use is a defense against infringement. If your use qualifies under the definition above, and as defined more specifically later in this chapter, then your use would not be considered an illegal infringement.

So what is a "transformative" use? If this definition seems ambiguous or vague, be aware that millions of dollars in legal fees have been spent attempting to define what qualifies as a fair use. There are no hard-and-fast rules, only general rules and varying court decisions. That's because the judges and lawmakers who created the fair use exception did not want to limit the definition of fair use. They wanted it--like free speech--to have an expansive meaning that could be open to interpretation.

Most fair use analysis falls into two categories: commentary and criticism; or parody.

1. Comment and Criticism

If you are commenting upon or critiquing a copyrighted work--for instance, writing a book review -- fair use principles allow you to reproduce some of the work to achieve your purposes. Some examples of commentary and criticism include:

quoting a few lines from a Bob Dylan song in a music review summarizing and quoting from a medical article on prostate cancer in a news report copying a few paragraphs from a news article for use by a teacher or student in a lesson, or copying a portion of a Sports Illustrated magazine article for use in a related court case.

The underlying rationale of this rule is that the public benefits from your review, which is enhanced by including some of the copyrighted material.

<font color="#33CCCC" size="1">[ January 21, 2007 08:54 PM: Message edited by: djsnjones ]</font>

[rafferty]

WOW! Great Information! Thanks!

Shelly