I find it tragic that what may have been assumed to be fair use a few decades ago . . . is now still protected by fair use, but now one needs an army of lawyers to protect their fair use claim.
My personal thought is that this is an irrational fear stemming from the popularity of home printers, video editing software, and the internet (all of which weren't easily available 20 years ago); it is now much easier for someone to "fairly use" copyrighted material in their own work. In the opinion of the media conglomerates this "devalues" their intellectual property so rather than allow fair use to proceed legally, they fight it in hopes that most of the little guys will just give up trying or cower in fear of the onslaught of lawyers.
Much of Fair Use has effectively been outlawed by the DMCA. If you buy a copyrighted work, you have the Fair Use right to make a backup copy, etc. But if the distributor has included any sort of copy protection, it is illegal to bypass the protection scheme - even though you have legal rights to the work!
We will have to start demanding fair use rights more as consumers to win them back.
What blows my mind is that it is legal for a person making an editorial or a video for teaching a film class to use excerpts from a video tape copy of a film (this is fair uses as long as the clips are short), but if the same film is CSS'ed on a DVD and the DVD is used as the source, it's illegal for the same person to copy this same clip of the same film for the same purpose . . .
The DVD is digital and has been copy protected so using it as the source would be a violation of the DMCA
We will have to start demanding fair use rights more as consumers to win them back.
Unfortunately few consumers even know what fair use is, much less how to demand it. Voting with wallets won't work in this instance. You stand a better chance by giving your money to the ACLU instead. They know how to pick and choose their battles well. $1000 contributed to the ACLU will do a lot more than a $10,000 blip that never shows up in Disney's pocketbook.
if the distributor has included any sort of copy protection, it is illegal to bypass the protection scheme
I believe that the DMCA states that it is illegal to distribute methods (software, instructions, etc.) of bypassing protection schemes. If you devise your own method and don't distribute it, you're not breaking the law (at least, not the DMCA).
Though fair use is a very strong issue, it's not THE issue as I see it. The media folks only have IP because they were able to con the creators into selling their rights to them. They are doing what they can to prevent creators from understanding that they (creators) don't need these companies to distribute their work for them anymore, thus they (creators) can distribute AND keep their rights (as provided by the gov't). The media conglomerates are the "buggy whip" manufacturers of today, and are thus obsole
What this country needs is a good five cent nickel.
Does fair use widely exist anymore? (Score:5, Insightful)
My personal thought is that this is an irrational fear stemming from the popularity of home printers, video editing software, and the internet (all of which weren't easily available 20 years ago); it is now much easier for someone to "fairly use" copyrighted material in their own work. In the opinion of the media conglomerates this "devalues" their intellectual property so rather than allow fair use to proceed legally, they fight it in hopes that most of the little guys will just give up trying or cower in fear of the onslaught of lawyers.
Re:Does fair use widely exist anymore? (Score:4, Informative)
We will have to start demanding fair use rights more as consumers to win them back.
Re:Does fair use widely exist anymore? (Score:1)
The DVD is digital and has been copy protected so using it as the source would be a violation of the DMCA
Re:Does fair use widely exist anymore? (Score:2)
Unfortunately few consumers even know what fair use is, much less how to demand it. Voting with wallets won't work in this instance. You stand a better chance by giving your money to the ACLU instead. They know how to pick and choose their battles well. $1000 contributed to the ACLU will do a lot more than a $10,000 blip that never shows up in Disney's pocketbook.
Re:Does fair use widely exist anymore? (Score:1)
If you devise your own method and don't distribute it, you're not breaking the law (at least, not the DMCA).
Re:Does fair use widely exist anymore? (Score:2)