See subject. I’m starting a website, and if I think push is coming to shove I have and will go to a lawyer.
Any books or websites that look useful?
Here’s what I taught my students
- Just because it is on the internet does not mean you can use it.
- “Fair use” means whatever the judge decides. There’s a reason IP attorneys make so much money.
- A link is NOT a copyright violation.
Your #1 and #3 are fine. Your #2 is silly.
Yes, there is considerable need for evaluation and interpretation in deciding Fair Use, but it is not simply matter of whim or mood. There are some pretty clear issues that need to be evaluated individually, and then weighed together, in order to assess whether a particular use constitutes fair use. Just because it’s not a simple and completely consistent formula doesn’t mean that it’s completely arbitrary or capricious.
For the OP: i’ve always found the Stanford University site to be an excellent resource. They have sections on a variety of copyright-related issues, and their Fair Use section does a good job of outlining the factors that need to be weighed and also of providing a summary of how some previous cases have been decided.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation also devotes a lot of its resources to issues of copyright and defending the principle of Fair Use.
What kind of website are you planning? What kind of material are you planning on “using fairly”?
Thank you. (I’ll let you two have fun now slugging it out.)
My experience, such as it is, is in academic publishing, in general, and in (a famous) particular, the situation of the James Joyce Estate and its hard-on of a director, Joyce’s grandson.
Eg, in broadest: Centennial of Bloomsday (the day in Dublin the fictional Ulysses is set), Dublin put son a citywide blowout (Joyce pride (ironically, now) and tourism is not insignificant): a line from the book to appear on a City Hall banner: nope.
I believe the Internet law people may even be familiar with the “full text on a server in Canada and you have to sign an oath before reading” farce.
ETA: more than “you two” came on board since I started writing.
Not to be too jerkish, but I’m still not sure if I want to announce yet. The ink on the contracts with the code developers is still wet.
We don’t need the specifics, just the general type of use you intend. The stuff protected by fair use are such uses as commentary, review, critique, parody, and such.
Anyways, while I’m not a lawyer, I think Standford does a pretty good job of both presenting it in layman-friendly terms while not skimping on the details. It begins with an overview of the most common cases, and gets more detailed as it goes.
Just a nitpick. That’s the same site mentioned by mhendo in post #3 despite the typo.
To be honest, Fair Use *is *whatever a judge decides. But virtually no Fair Use cases ever get to a judge. The few that do make spotty law that may be hard to interpret in your individual case. But all of them apply the same four-part test laid out in the law.
Is it likely that your site will substantially violate these?
And you can check on this by doing some research. There are already a million Joyce sites. The International James Joyce Foundation actually has a page on the Joyce Estate and it has a page on Fair Use in dealing with the Estate. Their lawyers are probably better than your lawyers and they’ve already done the real work instead of asking people on a message board. If you’re an academic, get in touch with *them *and ask questions. I’m sure they’ll be happy to work with you.