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Righthave "wrong" on fair use!!

This is a short article from last year but it shows how copyright holders view "fair use" differently than those who want to use copyrighted material

Interesting Read about the Mashup model, fair use and girl talk - NY Times

Really cool resource out of Stanford Law's "Copyright & Fair Use" Center - they're debuting a new case summary feature, all of which will be written by "experienced writers, all of whom are licensed attorneys." It looks like it's going to be super organized - with blurbs, summaries, full texts, and even "tags" to help navigate!

Bronies

Great article. I must admit to having had some of those very thoughts at different point this semester.

The A.P. and artist, Mr. Shepard Fairey settled on sharing the copyright to the famous photograph of Obama that became the iconic HOPE portrait of the then-presidential candidate. The amount of financial compensation agreed upon has not been disclosed, though in the future, their deal will apply to proceeds coming from any posters or other merchandise sold with the image. Originally, the A.P. sued in February 2009 for copyright infringement, but Mr. Fairey counter-sued, arguing that the HOPE image fell under the fair-use exception to copyright law. As our class has read thus far, regarding the exceptions of parodies to copyright law because of their transformative nature and in turn become a creative work wholly different from the original, the A.P.'s photograph was used in a similar capacity. The artist claimed "that he had effectively transformed the work into an idealized image 'that created powerful new meaning and conveys a radically different message.'"

According to the Washington Post, although the case has been settled with Fairey, the Associated Press intends to go to trial in March with Obey Clothing, a clothing line selling apparel with the Obama image. Another apparel manufacturer, One 3 Two, on the other hand, settled because they did not want to give the appearance that their primary goal was to make a profit. In fact, One 3 Two initially began selling the t-shirt to retailers, such as Urban Outfitters, to ultimately raise funds for Obama's campaign. Do you think that the A.P. had the right to sue over this photograph? Why or why not?

This case study looks at "jailbreakers," who are hacking their iPhones so that they may use unauthorized software and applications from other cell phone carriers. Apple has warned that such hacking will not only damage their iPhone, but is indeed copyright infringement. However, the Copyright Office has actually proposed that "jailbreaking" is actually considered "fair use." In the past, other laws, like the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (1998), have been used to protect creative property for much longer than actually necessary, thus diminishing valuable work available in the public domain.

the article I will be editing.

It appears that even professors often overlook the legality of distributing copyrighted materials. Although it's no question that fair use applies to a small excerpt or one chapter of a book, the legality of distributing multiple chapters or an entire work is, what this article calls, "cheating a legitimate economic interest." Students might disagree based on the cost of textbooks and course readers, though from the standpoint of the publisher and author, if an academic intends to use an entire work, it should not be copied, but purchased as the entire original work.