Another Great Job!

[DSYoungEsq]

And I cannot wait for:

1. Part 2

2. The inevitable load of comments attempting to assert that the US Copyright Act doesn’t say what it obviously does.

3. Hi, Opal!

[Gfactor]

Thanks.

@DSYoungEsq

And I cannot wait for:

1. Part 2

Coming soon.

2. The inevitable load of comments attempting to assert that the US Copyright Act doesn’t say what it obviously does.

On the SDMB? I’m shocked.

3. Hi, Opal!

Opal is a trademark of, well, Opal, I guess.

[Chronos]

DS, you’ve been here long enough to know to include a link to the column.

[squidfood]

Lot of detail, but ducks/ignores the most important part of the question: what about Warhol? Soup cans are most likely trademark not copyright, but the right to “fair use of popular culture” is at the forefront of questions of art and legality these days (whether sampling beats or making movies with pop culture in the background).

[Gfactor]

@squidfood

Lot of detail, but ducks/ignores the most important part of the question: what about Warhol? Soup cans are most likely trademark not copyright, but the right to “fair use of popular culture” is at the forefront of questions of art and legality these days (whether sampling beats or making movies with pop culture in the background).

It’s a four-part report. It’s in there.

[samclem]

Very, very impressive. Congrats to both Gfactor and Guest Contributor acsenray.

[Punoqllads]

I have an issue with this statement you make:

Fair use is widely misunderstood; it does not grant a right to copy an entire work, even if it’s only for your own use.

Didn’t the Supreme Court say in Sony v. Universal that copying an entire work to view later is fair use?

[Acsenray]

While we do address the soup can question, I don’t think we address in detail the matter of sampling that squidfood mentions. As you can probably tell, there’s a lot to say on the subject, and we had to do some degree of selection. I am, however, very pleased with this experience so far and I would be happy to work with Gfactor again in addressing IP questions.

By the way, I would like to add my kudos for Gfactor’s really hard work on this. And I’d like to thank him for letting me participate and helping to make it such a positive experience.

[Gfactor]

@Punoqllads

I have an issue with this statement you make:
Didn’t the Supreme Court say in Sony v. Universal that copying an entire work to view later is fair use?

After defing time-shifting as “the practice of recording a program to view it once at a later time, and** thereafter erasing it**,” (Emphasis added) the Court noted:

In summary, the record and findings of the District Court lead us to two conclusions. First, Sony demonstrated a significant likelihood that substantial numbers of copyright holders who license their works for broadcast on free television would not object to having their broadcasts time-shifted by private viewers. And second, respondents failed to demonstrate that time-shifting would cause any likelihood of nonminimal harm to the potential market for, or the value of, their copyrighted works.

So on the record before the court, it found that the plaintiff had not proven that time-shifting, as narrowly defined, was not a fair use. Typically, fair use is an affirmative defense, which the defendant would have to prove. The Betamax case is different because it was part of the Court’s developing contributory infringement doctrine. In order to do that Sony had to prove that the Betamax was not capable of commercially significant noninfringing uses.

Also, the part about unauthorized time-shifting was probably dicta because the Court had already decided that some copyright holders had authorized time-shifting, or were willing to do so. Because that was a noninfringing use. The part about unauthorized use was probably not necessary to the holding.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=464&invol=417

[Gfactor]

Thanks acsenray. BTW, squidfood, make sure to check out the reference section in part IV when it comes up. We’ve cited several discussions of digital sampling. We also discuss digital sampling in part II under *de minimis * infringement and cite a few sampling-related things there.

[Punoqllads]

Is there any way that you can alter the report to show that it is part 1 of 4? I, too, thought that there would only be two parts.

[Gfactor]

@Punoqllads

Is there any way that you can alter the report to show that it is part 1 of 4? I, too, thought that there would only be two parts.

That’s up to Ed. I’ll ask him.

[DSYoungEsq]

@Chronos

DS, you’ve been here long enough to know to include a link to the column.

:o

If I did, what the hell would you do with YOUR day??