RIAA President Decries Fair Use 486
triskaidekaphile writes, "Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, has an editorial on CNet responding to the Consumer Electronics Association's support of the Digital Freedom campaign for fair use. Sherman proclaims, 'The fair use doctrine is in danger of losing its meaning and value.' Like a true spinner, he indicates that fair use is indeed important, then states 'Let's be clear. The CEA's primary concern is not consumers, but technology companies — often large, multinational corporations which, like us, strive to make a profit... But to seize the mantra of "consumer rights" to advance that business interest is simply disingenuous.' Slashdotters, trollers, and pollsters one and all, what say you? Disingenuous or dissembling?"
Re:Fair Use vs. Limited Times (Score:3, Informative)
A work created today has a copyright term of the life of the author plus 70 years or for works for hire a term of 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation (whichever is sorter).
Re:I think he has a point (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure that his use of "fair use" is that far off. For example, "fair use" means you can quote a few words from a textbook, but cannot repeat the whole book. "Fair use" also means you can play a few seconds of a song, or a few seconds of a movie without permission or penalty.
Fair use does not mean they have to make it easy for you to make a copy of those few seconds.
The real dissembling comes from him saying nothing about the doctrine of "first sale." That's the one that gives you the right to do whatever you want with a product once you've purchased it. For example, if you purchase a Spalding baseball the Spalding company cannot limit you to catching it only with a genuine Spalding glove. They can advertise the balls as "best caught with a Genuine Spalding Glove", they can print "WARNING: catch this ball only with a Genuine Spalding Glove or hand damage may result", and they can even print "Never sell your glove to anyone else" on your glove. But what they print on it has no legal bearing on what you are legally permitted to do with it.
There are exceptions for certain materials, such as pesticides and herbicides, that prevent you from using them in a manner harmful to the environment. But unless a Brittany Spears disc is capable of producing an ecological disaster, I doubt strongly that they apply.
Re:Fair Use vs. Limited Times (Score:3, Informative)
(The last Mickey Mouse Copyright Expiry was to have been in 2003, but after intense lobbying, Congress passed The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in 1998 -- though a fat lot of good it did Sonny. The fact that Disney donated some $6.3 million of campaign cash that same year is purely a coincidence.)
Yeats had it right:
What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer
Re:yer mistaken (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Speaking on their history (Score:3, Informative)
You also choose to spend your time doing so, whereas others often will pay not to spend their time doing drudgework when they could be off doing something else they enjoy more, much like I pay someone to mow my grass so I can go out and play volleyball.
As to what you call "fair-use"... well, I can call my cat a dog, but that doesn't mean she's going to go fetch the paper.
While I think that what you did is "fair", it doesn't yet fall under the "comment, discussion, satire" statues of the "fair-use" doctrine, nor does it really fit into the "personal backup" or "right of first sale" aspects of other law. And as another example, I know several people who think torrenting a song to 10,000 "friends" is fair-use.
Which, when you get right down to it, is why we're having these discussions regarding personal rerecording, device shifting, file sharing, TIVO-like time shifting, and so on, and why those definitions need to get nailed down so that fair is fair, for everyone.
Re:He did lie.... (Score:5, Informative)
You're confused;
Fair use is an exemption that lets you make and distribute copies (for money or not) which would normally be prohibited by copyright. Thus, things like reviews and parody.
Things like backups and media shifting which doesn't involve making copies for other people should never have been the subject of copyright in the first place. They're just "use". Reasonable, ordinary, non-infringing "use" of something you already paid for.
I shouldn't need permission to "copy" a CD onto my mp3 player or recode it in different format, the same way I shouldn't need permission to put it in a regular CD player and have all the bits 'copied' from bumps on the disk to digital signals, to an analog representation of the music.
Don't let them pull the wool over your eyes, this isn't about fair use. This is an attack on just plain "use" and if you let them get away with it this time, the next move will be a fee every time you play the disk.
Fair Use in the US (Score:1, Informative)
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords 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
- the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
- the nature of the copyrighted work;
- the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
- the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The keywords are research, education, criticism, and parody, and nonprofit. The "nonprofit" part is what factored into the Betamax ruling [wikipedia.org]. But the dissenting opinion (reproduced in part in the Betamax case entry) said time-shifting is nonprofit personal use and is different from nonprofit educational/research/critical use or parody, and is not fair use.While dissenting opinions can't be used to establish legal precedent, they still can be used to argue points of law. And the law regarding format shifting is still evolving. The 1992 Audio Home Recording Act [wikipedia.org] allowed consumers to make digital copies for private noncommercial use. Additionally, there would be royalties paid on the equipment and media that would go to the artists. It added a new section [copyright.gov] to the US Copyright Act, including the following clause:
"No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings."
This was used by Diamond Multimedia in Recording Indus. Assn of Am. v. Diamond Multimedia Sys., Inc. (1999) where it was found that format-shifting was permissible and enables us to use MP3 players.
All well and good, but then we have the DMCA (1998) that prohibits circumvention of DRM. And people like Sherman who want it so that there is nothing available without DRM.
Re:I think he has a point (Score:2, Informative)
It is Fair Use to convert or backup a recording that you own an original licensed copy of. It is fair use for a scholar or journalist to quote an excerpt of somebody else's performance for purposes of making an argument or to expound on something related to said performance.
It is NOT fair use to wholesale copy a recorded work, slap on a five minute commentary and claim it is 'fair use.' It is NOT fair use to make wholsale copies of something to distribute to friends and strangers widely.
So you're correct. There are no degrees of 'Fair Use.' Copying either is or is not Fair Use.