Fair Use
Dec 03
Posted: under Copyrights.
Fair use is term associated with copyright law. It refers to situations where it is legal for someone to make a copy of part or all of a work without obtaining the author’s permission (please note that when I say author I really mean copyright holder, which may or may not be the actual author). It is spelled out in section 107 of copyright law. A couple of useful sources of information is this summary as well as Stanford’s Copyright and Fair Use Center (this has lots of various information).
Fair use is very important. We see it in action all the time and don’t realize it. Some common examples include a teacher making copies from a book to hand out to the class, quotations in papers, parodies, and the “backing up” of media (this includes making a tape for your car (I hope you really aren’t doing any more though.. 
), making CD’s with various songs on them and using your VCR/DVR to record shows). Without fair use you literally wouldn’t be allowed to make copies of anything under copyright for any reason without getting the author’s permission first. MP3 players would be outlawed along with VCR’s and DVR’s. It would be difficult at best to actually have a commentary on anything because you wouldn’t be able to quote, show images, or play sounds of what you’re talking about. Education costs would either skyrocket or education would decrease in quality as suddenly many useful aids could not be used. Research would be hindered as it would be illegal for certain types of research to be conducted (this is actually already the case).
Fair use has come under fire in recent years. In 1998, an extension to US copyright law, called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), was enacted that made many startling changes that shifted control away from the public and towards copyright holders. I’ll write much more on it later, but it’s impact on fair use is foggy. It contradicts many fair use guidelines including the above mentioned mention hindrance on research. It accomplishes this by outlawing the reverse engineering of software (that is, pulling it apart and seeing how it works). This process can lead to flaws being discovered in software, which is both why it is important for the public to have as a right and why copyright holders want it outlawed.
The DMCA is the major problem here. Fair use has become a fuzzy thing. What was once OK under fair use is now either not OK when we’re working with digital copies or it is questionable. The only way these issues get resolved is in the courts where a precedent must be set to clearly define what is OK and what is not (since the law doesn’t). Unfortunately, this takes much time and money. Many people would rather avoid copying than having to deal with the costs involved. Take me for example. Occasionally I’d love to post a short video clip of the Simpsons for a particularly funny joke. I can’t really do that though. Even though a clip of the length I’m thinking of should be covered under fair use, I’m pretty sure that Fox (they’re known to be EXTREMELY anal about allowing Simpsons content be copied) would have their lawyers contacting me and I don’t even want to mess with that.
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