[pct-l] copywrite

Ken Murray kmurray at pol.net
Fri Oct 19 20:45:48 CDT 2012


As a professional writer and editor, I've dealt often with these issues.

I'm not an attorney, nor even play one on TV.

Basically everything written is copywrited automatically at the moment
of creation.  The use without permission of such work can legally
be done under what is called "Fair Use Doctrine".  From our wiki friends:

In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, search engines, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship. It provides for the legal, unlicensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test.

<in the Facebook case, I think arguments could be made for reporting, criticism, commentary, and research.>

-The first factor is regarding whether the use in question helps fulfill the intention of copyright law to stimulate creativity for the enrichment of the general public, or whether it aims to only "supersede the objects" of the original for reasons of personal profit.

when Postholer copied the entire thread system to his site, which makes money, he failed this test.  The posts to the Facebook account would not seem to do that.

-Nature of the copied work--Although the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that the availability of copyright protection should not depend on the artistic quality or merit of a work, fair use analyses consider certain aspects of the work to be relevant, such as whether it is fictional or non-fictional.

To prevent the private ownership of work that rightfully belongs in the public domain, facts and ideas are separate from copyright—only their particular expression or fixation merits such protection. On the other hand, the social usefulness of freely available information can weigh against the appropriateness of copyright for certain fixations.-

It would appear an argument can be made for a social usefulness of the postings on Facebook.

-Amount and substantiality--The third factor assesses the quantity or percentage of the original copyrighted work that has been imported into the new work. In general, the less that is used in relation to the whole, ex: a few sentences of a text for a book review, the more likely that the sample will be considered fair use.-

This seems to be most applicable to commercial works.

-Effect upon work's value--The fourth factor measures the effect that the allegedly infringing use has had on the copyright owner's ability to exploit his or her original work. The court not only investigates whether the defendant's specific use of the work has significantly harmed the copyright owner's market, but also whether such uses in general, if widespread, would harm the potential market of the original.-

Hard to see the commercial value of postings....However, that argument holds more water when applied to professional writers and speakers, like myself.  I do use some of the same words in talks I give, and may very well in guidebooks.  As a published author, I have credibility in making that claim.  The average person would have more difficulty.






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