Copyrights

[Storm Raven]

Nolo.com - plain english legal definitions. Listed alphabetically, scroll down to C, then to copyright. Scroll down until you see the link for Infringement, which will take you to the definition of Infringement (of copyright)

"Any unauthorized use of a copyrighted work other than fair use. Uses can range from outright plagiarism to using a portion of a photograph in a CD-ROM."

Fair use is a link, clicking that takes you to it's definition.

"Fair use rule: A law that authorizes the use of copyrighted materials for certain purposes without the copyright owner's permission. Generally, uses intended to further scholarship, education or an informed public are considered fair use, but recent years have seen severe limits placed on the amount of a work that can be reproduced under the fair use rule."

(Emphasis on ammount, mine.)

And seeing as what RigaMortis posted could quite easily be construed as education or informed public, I fail to see how it's a problem.

Just for information purposes, the justifications you cite have fairly well defined legal meanings under U.S. law, defined by caselaw for the most part, and posting material on an internet bulletin board does not fall within them.

Fair use is much more restricted than most people who are not very familiar with copyright law think. It is hard to move into the "safe harbor" of fair use, because it is an excused copyright infringement, so the courts are generally hesitant to allow it for something that has not been pretty firmly established already.

For the most part, "education" and "informing the public" are required to be as part of a fairly formal setting. You can use the "education" loophole, for the most part only if you are using the material in the context of a formal educational insitution or class. You can use the "informing the public" loophole for the most part only if you are a professional reporter reporting on a specific issue in a publication, a member of a public advocacy group putting forth information as a public service or some other more formalized delivery of the information. Informal dissemination is generally not covered. The further away you move from a formalized use like I've described, the more likely it is that your use is not covered by fair use. In this case, the complete lack of these formalities pretty much obviates fair use.

 

[kreynolds]

Uh...is this in the right place?

 

[Piratecat]

Is this part of another thread?

 

[AuraSeer]

Is this part of another thread?

People wuz talking about copyrights in the "Is coup de grace a broken rule??" thread. I thought the issue was dropped there, even before the thread was locked, but I guess not.