The Savvy Technologist » fair use

Reclaiming fair use

Tim Wilson — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:45:21 +0000

I’m a huge Creative Commons advocate, and I use a CC license on pretty much everything I publish online. As much as I love the Commons, I think it’s important to remember (and teach) that we’re not without some rights when it comes to traditionally licensed works. (Here’s where I insert my note that Creative Commons licensed works are not copyright-free, they’re simply licensed under relatively permissive licenses in contrast with most commercially produced works.)

I found a couple great resources recently that I’m looking forward to sharing with people in my school district. The first from the Center for Social Media called Recut, Reframe, Recycle focuses on the use of copyrighted materials in online videos and argues that many of them could be legal. The authors include a list of 45 videos in nine fair use-protected categories. Believe it or not, there are shades of grey here. We shouldn’t automatically reject student work that utilizes copyrighted works.

The second piece is a video I found at the Stanford Law School by Bucknell University Professor Eric Faden entitled A Fair(y) Use Tale. Professor Faden thumbs his nose at The Mouse brilliantly by remixing clips from Disney movies to teach about copyright and fair use.

I’m adding these resources to my copyright and fair use arsenal. I hope someone else will find them useful too.

Teaching fair use

Tim Wilson — Wed, 31 May 2006 15:43:51 +0000

On the Media from May 19, 2006 had a segment entitled “Fair Use Follies” that attempted to highlight some of the challenges faced by documentary filmmakers who are finding it increasingly difficult to decide when their use of copyrighted work constitutes fair use. It was an interesting discussion, and one of the speakers led me to the Duke University Center for the Study of the Public Domain.

The CSPD produced a comic book called “Tales from the Public Domain: BOUND BY LAW?” that makes a great introduction to the fair use doctrine. It’s focused mostly on filmmaking, but the principles will apply to a variety of creative works. I made copies for the media specialists in my district. (The comic is Creative Commons-licensed of course.)

public domain, fair use, creative commons

Blogging and fair use issues

Tim Wilson — Sun, 28 Sep 2003 14:49:53 +0000

We know that teachers must respect copyright when they prepare materials for their courses, but what about their weblogs (and Web pages by extension)? There’s an interesting post at the New Media Journalism blog at Seton Hilll University on Fair Use and Blogging.

How much text can you cite from another website in your blog before you’ve crossed the line and entered into copyright infringement? Is it okay to post an image you didn’t create in a blog? Even if it’s just for window dressing? Does the “educational” use of blogs in our journalism classes give our bloggers greater freedom and protection to cite text and post multimedia?

The author includes some interesting links to fair use resources online. I think we all know that the Internet is not a copyright-free zone, but it’s good to get a reminder.