I'm not talking about quoting, I'm talking about things like the
copious images of Disney characters sprinkled throughout the site,
without even mentioning the anime characters. But I'm not advocating
paranoia, but I am advocating a less nonchalant attitude about fair
use. At the moment it is often used as a "get out of copyright free"
card in ways which I suspect would not be legally defensible, or not
worth the money or time it would take to defend it (considering the
principle at hand would be "does this qualify as X under this law,"
I'm not sure this would really be a first-amendment blockbuster if it
clearly didn't qualify).
FF
On 5/10/05, David Gerard <fun(a)thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
Fastfission (fastfission(a)gmail.com) [050511 01:25]:
I don't see any good way around this. It is
less a problem of
Wikipedia itself (though I'd be very careful of "fair use" because of
the way it is structured in US law), as it is with the ability of the
big and powerful to wage legal war even on principles they are in the
wrong on. It's more of a maddening thought than it is a sobering one.
The mediapathic nature of such a suit.
"They're suing an encyclopedia for quoting them."
"WTF?!"
"They're suing Wikipedia for quoting them."
"UNLEASH THE NINJA FIRST-AMENDMENT ATTACK LAWYERS!"
It's the sort of backup one hopes never to have to call upon. But it's
there and keen to help. Avoid copyright paranoia.
- d.
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