Coding Fair Use 109
An Anonymous Coward writes: "A report from CFP2002 on the tension between making fair use clear and retaining ambiguity to facilitate the application of fair use to future technologies." Lots of good papers available from the Fair Use By Design workshop and the conference in general.
RIAA in a nut shell.. (Score:5, Interesting)
"The floor for the entertainment and other "content" industries is increasingly clear. They don't fundamentally believe in fair use, and they see technology as a way to turn everything into pay-per-view -- a system that would eliminate fair use almost completely."
This is what is wrong with the US today.
Heh (Score:3, Interesting)
This is only going to become more common. Companies have to realize that people are not "consumers" and that they want to particpate rather than just observe. All of the best things happening in the game industry are happening because of the participation of people in the market. Hopefully this will expand, and be encouraged by more astute businesses.
My vote for Fair Use. (Score:5, Interesting)
please restrict fair use (Score:2, Interesting)
The speed of laws (Score:1, Interesting)
This is what it all comes down to, in my opinion. The rate at which things change in regards to technology, and thus web-related issues, is astronomically fast when compared to the evolution of our current economical system (where copyright laws take hold). Trying to constraint the content of something that changes so quickly isn't feasible. The people who are likely proposing such measures are most likely the people that don't really understand the implications of it (that could be expressed by IT-savvy individuals with a background in law/commerce).
There may be some general statements we can make, and even some extreme cases that we can easily restriction, but creating steadfast regulations that are intended to be applied wholesale ain't gonna cut it.
Re:My vote for Fair Use. (Score:2, Interesting)
This is NOT Ideal (Score:3, Interesting)
There are several things I'd like to see additionally. For example;
Phew, got into an intense rant there. Anyway, I think you get my idea. I think the law has to shift more than these basic points, but they are a good start of making the public (and lawmakers!) aware that there is another tray on this scale.
All my commercial software is licensed (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I understand, the book publishers tried to license all their works around the turn of the century and this resulted in the "First Sale" doctrine we have now when the Courts struck that down.
I'd be in favor of "First Sale" recognition for software, but until we have that Fair Use doesn't have much affect on me. Even if Fair Use would allow me to do something with software that I don't already do, the license would probably forbid it.
Is there any chance that the Courts will just strike down the licenses for software? Are we to act like these software are only protected by copyright, including Fair Use provisions, to get this brought before a court?
Appeal to the artists! (Score:2, Interesting)
This in itself will not solve the problem nor will anything be accomplished in this manner. Corporations have legal rights and have to enforce those rights. And that's fine, they should. What people don't seem to realize for some bizarre reason is that the content PRODUCERS are the ones that give these rights to the corporations. When they transfer rights over to the corporations - its over, stop complaining... nothing will change. What needs to happen is that the ARTISTS need to establish a relationship with the CONSUMERS such that the artist retains the rights and has the ability to implement fair-use. If an artist wants to grant you specific rights to copy stuff for free and such - you must get that from the ARTIST.
Too many times we have heard tales of starving artist through corporation and such to sway legislation to stop people from making copies. If the corporations never have the rights transferred to them, this becomes unnecessary as the artist can make money themselves OR through a corporation that could be given LIMITED publishing rights. This is when the tide will turn, and not before - because corporations do and should have rights to protect anything they own and right now they own the rights to the content we want to copy. Until that changes, we the people are screwed and can't do much about it.... legally anyways.
Re:Appeal to the artists! (Score:3, Interesting)
To quote the parent:
I have two issues with this, the first is well said by Robert Heinlein
The second is that we, as citizens have granted these rights you speak of to the cooperations. We also have the power to take away these 'rights'. I feel that several things are obvious: