Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 5/20/06, Steve Summit <scs(a)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