[Foundation-l] Fair use being badly abused on en.wikipedia

[David Gerard]

On 07/01/2008, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

> Though fair use (for all users) is embedded in statute (in the US),
> the way it's done is that it's an affirmative defense, rather than an
> inherent right.
> In other words, they can *always* sue, but under some circumstances
> their case is (rebuttably) inherently rather weak.


Note, by the way, they can not only lose,  but lose and be spanked.
e.g. some suits brought by the Church of Scientology, where they had
attorney's fees awarded against them and were reprimanded by the
judge. After a few active years, the CoS has been spanked so hard so
often it hasn't brought a copyright suit in several years.


- d.