# Is this fair use?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-fair-use/380473>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 15, 2006, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-fair-use/380473 "2006-11-15T01:26:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2006, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-fair-use/380473/21 "2006-11-15T18:21:52Z")

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In law school (c. 1991) our copyright final gave us several options for take-home essays (you could use whatever resources you could find, but you only had a short time to write the paper): I chose the fair use question–write the opinion in [American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, Inc.](http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/60_F3d_913.htm).

In a footnote, I nodded to an old saw: It’s said that “[T]he world goes ahead because each of us builds on the work of our predecessors. `A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant can see farther than the giant himself.'” _Sony_, 464 U.S. at 446 n. 28 (Blackmun, J. dissenting), _quoting_ Chafee, _Reflections on the Law of Copyright: I_, 45 Colum. L. Rev. 503, 511 (1945). Unfortunately, this platitude does little to solve real life problems. While it is true that the dwarf standing on the giant’s shoulders could see farther than the giant, it is equally true that the giant could see just as far if the situation were reversed–at least until he crushed the dwarf. The challenge in most cases is telling the dwarves from the giants.

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**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-fair-use/380473/22 "2006-11-15T18:33:44Z")

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Mr. Patry has traced the history of the shoulders of giants phrase here: [The Patry Copyright Blog: Standing on Someone Taller](http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2006/02/standing-on-someone-taller.html)

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