Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
"Fair use" isn't really a law... it's an official dodge used for convenience (to give the authorities the excuse to not have to chase down every petty criminal it knows about).
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Whoa. Hold on there. You're correct in stating that "Fair Use" isn't a law. It's a principle that allows exception to normal copyright law. It is
NOT, however, an "excuse". The classic fair use exemptions relate to reviewers quoting a work, excerpting a work for educational purposes, critiquing a work, and parodying a work. People acting in this way are not "petty criminals" who just happen to get away with it because the law turns a blind eye. While many authors would disagree, a book critic who tears apart a passage from a work is not a criminal. Neither is a teacher who shows a video clip to his whole class. Neither is a television writer who parodies a bit of popular culture.
Your desire to look upon everyone who copies any part of a work as a criminal past redemption has made you paint a whole class of citizens with a black brush indeed.
(Edit: here's a page that explains fair use in a more complete way:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyrigh...view/chapter9/)