Erik Moeller wrote:
If there's one area we should focus on purging of any & all fair use, it's photos of living celebrities. But the mere fact that the quantity of fair use images is high does not indicate that something is fundamentally wrong; the quantity of articles documenting pop culture is also very high, and documenting contemporary works will often include fair use excerpts. I would be more open to a rigid approach if copyright terms weren't so ridiculously high, but there is no relevant process of contemporary works passing into the public domain anymore. Making use of the few exemptions the law provides seems entirely reasonable.
Absolutely, but I do find that people get stuck on "fair use" when there are other alternatives in law. If for any reason a copyright has expored, or the material wasn't copyrightable in the first place we don't need to consider fair use.
Ec