Copyright And Fair Use

The video A Fair(y) Use Tale Trial by Professor Eric Faden was created with the purpose of educating it’s viewers about Fair Use principles. It creates a transformative work through different Disney movie clips each only a few seconds long strung together in order to explain Fair Use and Copyright in an entertaining and original way. The video is noncommercial, and no profit was gained by Professor Faden in producing the work or after it was displayed.

To answer this, Copyright Law must be understood. Copyright Laws protect intellectual property, and ownership rights. Artists can control their content by selling, leasing it or giving it away. Artists can grant permission for their work and have the freedom to charge. It encourages creativity, and protects the creativity by keeping it exclusive to the creator which allows profit. Mass media embodies the Copyright content,

Fair use is the ability to use a small piece of someone's creative work without permission. One can claim fair use only if the work isn’t for commercial purposes, is for education criticism/commentary, news

Today, our culture has been colonized by private “property rights and the only solution for artists who appropriate other peoples’ work rest with the legal concept of “Fair Use” These laws are intended to allow free appropriation in certain cases of commentary and are the sole acknowledgment within copyright law of a possible need for artistic freedom and free speech. However, the principle of fair use is interpreted conservatively and is being held from many “infringers.”

Fair use law states - “ Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that may qualify as fair use.” this means that you can use another person's work as long as they use a certain amount of the original owners work, or it is used for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. In Mr. Faden's mashup he did not use anymore than 30 seconds of the movies used in the video. Meaning that his mashup is covered by the fair use

Copyright is any expression recorded in any physical form, published or unpublished in any medium whether it is music, books, artworks or newspaper articles. Federal publications, facts and ideas are not copyrighted (www.honolulu.hawaii.edu). The very first copyright law that was established was known as the Statute of Anne, which was authorized in England in 1710 (history of copyright, 2005). The newly founded constitution allowed secure rights to its creators. An act very similar to the Statute of Anne was passed by congress in 1790 as the first American copyright law (history of copyright, 2005). As more and more books were produced and were becoming more accessible domestically and internationally in Europe and North America, it became

In its beginning, the United States based its code of laws on the British Law (Moser & Slay, 2011, 16). Connecticut passed the first state copyright bill: an Act for the Encouragement of Literature and Genius in 1783 (Moser & Slay, 2011, 16). By 1786, twelve out of the thirteen states had passed copyright statutes. However, the fact that each state had its own copyright laws created inconsistency and inconvenience for enforcement from one state to another. A federal copyright law was necessary. On March 1783, the Continental Congress drafted the Constitutional Copyright Clause, which gave to the federal government the power to pass copyright laws (Moser & Slay, 2011, 17). The clause stipulated that the goal of the United States was to promote

Fair use is the right to use copyrighted materials without the copyright owner’s permission. Permitting limited and reasonable uses without permission as long as they do not prejudice the copyright owner’s rights or interfere with normal exploitation of the work. Thus, fair use is intended to allow the unauthorized use of copyrighted materials for the benefit of society, believing such use serves a higher purpose. But fair use has its limits, too. Section 107 of the Copyright Act states that:

The second approach to copyright is the democratic approach. All works of art are ideas built on a foundation of other ideas. The democratic approach advocates that intellectual property belongs to the society and should be available for the general good of the public. If the particular usage is intended to derive financial benefit or any other business-related benefits, it is considered inappropriate usage. If the utilization of factual work were more usable than the use of someone’s creative work, then that would not be fair use. There is no specified edge to the amount of quoted work that can be called “fair use.” The courts exercise common sense to determine if it was too much. If the utilization of the material created market or stirred a competition, and if the fair use diminishes demand for the original product, it is not considered as appropriate use (Crews, 1993).

Anyone accused of copyright infringement is protected under the claim of Fair use as long as they stayed within the fair use guidelines; the borrowed work must be used for the following reasons: Education, Critique, Parody or commentary. Professor Faden has been wrongly accused of Copyright infringement over his “Fair(y) Use Tale” video by Disney, accusing him of stealing their Intellectual Property for his own personal gain. This paper will prove Professor Faden’s innocence and why his video should be allowed to stay online.

During fair use trials judges are supposed to at least these “four factors” 1. The purpose of the use 2. The nature of the work used 3. The amount and sustainability of the original work used 4. The effect on the market of the original, as well as the overall purposes of copyright law.

I learned from John that if one has a copyright, that means they own the right to produce whatever is copyrighted. Further, that person has the right to create derivative works of the copyright and control who makes derivative works as well. An example of a derivative work would be when someone makes a movie based off of a novel. Also, the person with the copyright has the power to distribute copies, transfer ownership, and decide who can perform or display the work in public. John also explained that the ownership of a copyright lasts a total of seven years, and after that, a copyright without ownership is called a public domain. That means it is free to use in the public world.

According to Intellectual Property Quotes (n.d.), “While American intellectual property deserves protection, that protection must be won and defended in a manner that does not stifle innovation, erode due process under the law, and weaken the protection of political and civil rights on the Internet” (Intellectual Property Quotes, n.d.). In this paper I will discuss the facts and legal reasoning of this case, what the Fair Use Doctrine is, and will answer the following: why it is important to protect intellectual property, why it is important for society to have access to intellectual property, and whether the Fair Use Doctrine properly balances the rights of content producers against the public good.

Fair use is a defense to copyright infringement that essentially asks of any particular use; Is this fair?

Copyright notices—often just a simple statement on the work itself of the year protection was acquired and by whom—are not always a good indication of whether or not a work is protected because most countries do not require such formalities, and so lack of notice does not mean lack of protection. Courts may also subsequently decide in the context of an infringement suit that the work did not meet the minimum criteria for copyright protection, even if the work had been previously registered by a government copyright agency. However, copyright notices give at least some indication of who to contact if permission is