You might want to read up on what Fair Use actually is, personal use is not included in US copyright law. It even goes further to be decided on a case by case basis. In US law this is it for "fair use" (I agree with Harmon on the professor example, he is dead on, but that is not what most of the ranting has been about. Not many of us are public officials or responsible for teaching a class, etc.)
Sec 106 and 106a are also of importance to the author's rights but not to my point here so it has not been included.
My main question; where in this law does it state anything about ever owning the material we buy? Technically we have never owned it, only the paper it is printed on. Therefore there is no material included with a digital file so the actual download is completely owned by someone else. I don't think that this is the best solution, but for now, and has been for awhile, the law. The interpretation of the law has been proven with the huge mp3 lawsuits and the rulings on those cases. Those precedents are the ones that matter as precedence seems to create the law in a fluid fashion rather than a true resolution.
I hate that the courts are making policy, but we are, and have been, going into a new era of information availability and the quickest to respond is always the courts. They judge based on their interpretation of the laws as written. The issue is congress, and until they get something going the courts will continue to see everything on a case by case basis and rule completely based on the framework of law that has been provided to them. (However meager and lacking they are)
Rather than rant about the situation on a forum, call your congress-person, call you local authorities, get involved in the real sense of doing something, though a radical "government and business is out to take over and get me" ideal is probably not going to get you anywhere except maybe on the FBI watch list.
Quote:
US Code Chapter 1 Title 17 § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
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.
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