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