On 5/27/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
A trivially small quotation has been held to be not fair use (well, not fair dealing) - the ruling was, I believe, that if you take the only bit of any actual interest and quote that you're damaging the ability to sell the book. I'd have to dig around a bit to find the case, but I believe it was a politicians memoirs being quoted in a newspaper.
UK law?
In any case like this, the work and amount being quoted is only part of the equation; the use being made and the character of the work in which it's being used are important as well.
I suspect in this case a large part of it was the attempt by one newspaper to scoop the exclusive of another?
-Matt