Associated Press: A Brief Look at Fair Use and a Lost Story of The Grateful Dead

It is just my two cents worth, but after sitting for ten years and still on The Author’s Guild Board, and the Advisory Board of the National Writer’s Union– and I only mention this because I have seen so many cases of what appears to constitute and what appears not to constitute proper usage of the ‘fair use’ clause in copyright…

this is why I say, given the outcome of the many cases I’ve seen… it ought be enough to give respect to the AP (Associated Press) and its writers to quote from them, say five paragraphs or less of a 20 paragraph+ article, to, as we most often do at TMV, credit the writer by name, block quote their words, and put the link back to the original article. In this way, as with other news sources we quote, we truly respect ‘fair use’ which generally means ‘quoting from,’ rather than taking the entire article or if originally fashioned, the heart of the article wholesale.

Here is a ‘fair use’ clause from the federal copyright law (by the way, it can be quoted in full, as you, the taxpayers own the government publications for public use):

07: Limitatons on exclusive rights: Fair Use

Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phone records 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. (added pub. l 94-553,
Title I, 101, Oct 19, 1976, 90 Stat 2546)

And also this is useful

The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.”

As I was preparing to go to law school, one of my interest areas was Intellectual Property Law, and I read and still read deeply in the subject. One of the most interesting cases revolved around the Grateful Dead museum and its holder vs authors compiling a book on the Grateful Dead. They’d applied to the museum and its owner of the artifacts there for permission to print copies of some of the vintage posters for the GD concerts. They were turned down. They printed thumbnail pictures of the posters in their book anyway… on the advice of their lawyer that it was fair use. The museum owner who had license to all matter Grateful Dead in his possession, sued.

Eveyone and their mother argued back and forth. But, one of the most poignant arguments was, that no one would mistake the thumbnails of the posters in the book as the ‘real thing,’ thereby not diminishing the value of the original posters… An additionally effective argument was that the book and the printing of the book constituted releasing knowledge and history to the public, and that in this sense, quoting from or ‘picturing from’ in order to disseminate historical facts, was within “fair use.’

Those, and several other arguments, convinced the court that in fact the authors were in compliance with ‘fair use,’ that they had not taken ‘the heart of the work,’ and were clear of other possible violations. The museum director/franchise owner lost his case.

However, most notable was the fact that the book’s being in print brought many more visitors to the museum than before, as it was in significant part a living and ongoing advertisment for the museum… a kind of publicity and positioning that the museum owner would have had to pay a fortune for otherwise.

As it was, he paid nearly a fortune anyway… to sue…. people who actually would put he and his museum in a place in the sun.