Weblogsky: Fair use "whispering campaign"

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April 9, 2008

Fair use "whispering campaign"

While the digital world makes it increasingly tough to control access to content, content owners push for stronger and more restrictive copyright law and enforcement. ars technica reports a "whispering campaign" against fair use exceptions. If you, like so many people, don't understand fair use, they define it:

Fair use and fair dealing put limitations on these otherwise exclusive rights, and they do so on the theory that copyright is not an absolute right to control and profit from every single use of a particular work. News reporting, classroom use, commentary, parody; in the US, at least, these don't require either permission or payment.

They report that "copyright expert William Patry believes that a 'counter-reformation' is in the works to crimp worldwide plans to expand fair use." In Patry's blog, he says

ministries in countries are told that fair use (and by extension possible liberal fair dealing provisions) violate the "three-step" test. And who wants to violate the three-step after all? The appeal by counter-reformation forces to external and abstract concepts like the three-step test is a time-worn tactic: when you can't win on the merits, shift the debate elsewhere to grounds on which you think you can win. Given that few ministry officials are experts in copyright law, much less arcana like the three-step test, these appeals -- made by those who claim to be such experts -- can be effective. They shouldn't be. National governments should make policy decisions based on the merits of the proposals, free from such scare tactics.

Bloggers especially should become more knowledgeable of copyright law and fair use - we're "fair using" all the time.

jon posted this at 7:38 AM
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