Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 5/20/06, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
A more interesting question is whether or not fair use is Constitutionally required. From my research on this it seems to be that it is, but this doesn't seem to have been explicitly stated in any US Supreme Court rulings. See http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2002dltr0003.html
This case becomes all the more interesting because the people with the fair use argument lost, and yet it will help establish a firmer footing for fair use. The argument was only about fair use in an indirect manner; it dealt with the legality of devices designed to circumvent copy-protection devices on CDs. In other words it was not about fair use, but about devices that would facilitate fair use.
The ruling was at the District Appeals Court level, and is thus not binding in other districts. A different outcome for a similar case in a different district is conceivable.
Now, despite my seeming rhetoric, I am not trying to claim that the copyright-is-wrong activists are wrong, nor am I suggesting that Anthony DiPierro is a "copyright-is-wrong" activist. (I have no idea how Anthony DiPierro feels about copyright, but some of his arguments *sound* like the arguments of those activists, which is why I bring all this up.)
FWIW, I *am* a "copyright-is-wrong" activist, though I don't believe that my arguments I've been making in this thread rely on that.
I'm also a big believer that there are many instances in Wikipedia where the doctrine of fair use is abused in a way which is unhelpful. It is my opinion that explicitly licensed (to everyone) and/or undisputably public domain content should be preferred, not for the sake of the legal principles themselves but so that the content can be distributed in as many jurisdictions as possible without any fear of legal reprecussions. However, I have come to recognize the fact that it is impossible to create a quality encyclopedia which is legal to distribute in all jurisdictions of the world.
That seems like a fair analysis, and I will be the first to say that fair use claims should be done prudently. I think too that at some point The Foundation will need to resolve the ambiguity of whether it's a publisher or an ISP. These different models carry different implications.
Ec