Wednesday, August 5, 2009

The Kingston Daily Freeman Blogs: "Oh, the blogs!"

The Kingston Daily Freeman Blogs: "Life," I wrote.

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Posted by Elliott Auerbach at 11:50 AM

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include —

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

August 5, 2009 at 12:01 PM
Anonymous said...

Dear Ivan,
Unless you are arguing that "the people's watchdog" is selling advertising space on http://www.ulstercountycomptroller.blogspot.com/
you are wrong.

Being snarky in and of itself is fine, but being snarky while being remarkably incorrect, especially when asserting something is a violation of a law you obviously have nothing but a cursory understanding of makes you look ridiculous.

Love,
"The Blog-reader's Watchdog"

August 5, 2009 at 1:48 PM
Ivan said...

I'm also posting my answer here as it was posted in my blog:

Thanks for your input, "The Blog-readers Watchdog," but I believe when it comes to the Internet, the issue is still murky in the courts, mainly because it hasn't been brought up.

Let me explain: A newspaper or media company that produces a story spends resources, which some people call "hard earned money," to create such a story.

A person or Web site that copies all that work and posts it spends a grand total of zero dollars reproducing that story.

Does that sound fair to you?

Fair use allows you, for instance, to make copies of songs for your personal use, but you can't post them online, because then you are distributing copyrighted material to people who might have bought the songs.

The question of fair use for online stories (call them bad songs), hasn't been yet answered. For a reader, Auerbach's site and the Freeman are basically giving people the same story in the same platform - the Internet.

But fearing having to sue thousands of sites or losing such battles in court, media companies are considering erecting pay walls and make deals with news aggregators like Google and Yahoo to share revenue.

Alas, it might be too late for some. You don't see people copy and pasting from the Hyde Park Townsman anymore.

Because it's not there.

...
And as promised in the post, let me say one last thing: You're crazy.


...
Having said all this, I've send the question to a mass media law expert and former mentor who's well versed in these matters. I'll let you know what he thinks, although I fear an answer like "don't bother me when I'm on vacation!"

Ivan

August 5, 2009 at 8:22 PM

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