[Wikipedia-l] Fair use

[Jimmy O'Regan]

Merritt L. Perkins wrote:

> I am confused by the discussions of,” Fair Use”. What does the term 
> mean? What are they talking about?
>
> If I describe an automobile as “ A motor vehicle for transporting 
> people." you know that it is not an advertising sign or some kind of 
> computer program. You can proceed to add more details.
>
> Does” Fair Use” mean the use that a program is intended for; the use 
> that a person can properly make of a program?
>
> What does the acronym GFDL stand for?
>
> This was dictated with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 7 Preferred and read 
> by Jennifer.
>
> Merritt L. Perkins
>
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>
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Given that this is a mailing list used to discuss the matters which 
arise on a free /encyclopaedia/ I don't think it's remiss of me to say 
you should perhaps look these terms up first? Since you're using a 
speech recognition program, I'll presume you require it, and that 
entering individual URLs may be difficult; I have a bookmarklet set in 
mozilla (http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?search=%s&go=Go) which 
allows me to type "wiki term I wish to look up"; this brings me directly 
to the page, if one exists under that title, otherwise it brings me to 
the search page. Using this I find:
The *fair use* doctrine <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine> is a 
body of law <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law> and court decisions 
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_decision> which provide limitations 
and exceptions to copyright 
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limitations_and_exceptions_to_copyright>.
and:
The *GNU Free Documentation License* (GFDL) is a copyleft 
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft> license for free content 
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_content>, designed by the Free 
Software Foundation 
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation> (FSF) for the 
GNU <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU> project.