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Hello.
I am an artist preparing a website. I feel it necessary to compose a short
monograph on Fair Use Rights and Copyrights as they apply to the internet.
My intention is to present intelligent questions -- and not presume to have
answers.
Can anyone reference specific court cases that would arose over the then new
technology of inexpensive color copiers that became common in the late
1980's ( which enabled anyone to copy high quality prints from coffee-table
art books)? I remember that the heavy-handed warnings that Kinko's first
posted against copyright infringement were softened after a few years with
'personal use allowed' notices. I assume judication inspired this change of
heart.
From what I can discern, court cases dealing with the internet and copyright
have predominately dealt with secondary liability once infringement is
established, rather than addressing any fundamental Fair Use versus
Copyright issues. Is this true?
There is a law library one hour's drive away. And I have already internet
references for the specific U.S. statutes on fair use rights and copyrights,
and some websites discussing the issues (i.e.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html) . Specific references for
relevant court cases, or text-books on the issues, would be very useful.
Among texts in my home library are popular discussions of the legal cases
arising from the 'expropriation' modern-art movement of the 1960's, the most
famous case being a suit over A.Warhol's soup can painting (though this was
about trademark infringement and not copyright).
Thank you for any help you can give.
TJ
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On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 17:39:15 -0400, cpyrtcp@sprfls.org wrote:
On 29 Aug 2004 "Need Legal Advice" <need_legal_advice@hotmail.com>
wrote:
Can anyone reference specific court cases that would arose over the then new
technology of inexpensive color copiers that became common in the late
1980's ( which enabled anyone to copy high quality prints from coffee-table
art books)?
For persons who are sued after having reproduced then without the
copyright owners permission republished copyright protected works, the
results are the same regardless whether the means used are inexpensive
color copies or a top of the line high-density Kodak or Merganthaler
or like equipment.
I'm not sure that's truly the case. After all, one aspect of a fair use
defense is whether the copied work would substitute as the original
and thus deprive the copyright holder of income. It's possible an
inferior copy would be less likely to be infringing than a perfect copy,
although of course one factor is not likely to be dispositive by itself.
As an example, low resolution thumbnails of artistic works used to
refer to them in a search engine have been found noninfringing partly
for this reason. Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp., 336 F.3d 811 (9th Cir.2003)
is that case.
In fact, this single issue, considered under the fourth factor of a fair
use analysis (impact on the marketplace) is often the most important.
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On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 17:39:15 -0400, cpyrtcp@sprfls.org wrote:
Can anyone reference specific court cases that would arose over the then new
technology of inexpensive color copiers that became common in the late
1980's ( which enabled anyone to copy high quality prints from coffee-table
art books)?
I'm not sure that's truly the case.
The color copier was only a minor technological advancement. Black
and white copiers had been around since the 1960s or earlier; color
photography had been around since the 1930s; black and white
photography had been around since the 1850s. As far as I know, the
laws governing those three technologies were directly applicable to
color photocopying. Those laws generally state that you are allowed
to make copies of images for private use, academic study, etc., but
you aren't allowed to use them commercially (except in certain ways as
part of a parody, academic research paper, political commentary, etc.)
A much more disruptive technology was the consumer video recorder,
which appeared in the late 1970s. For the first time, movies and TV
shows could be easily copied. The movie industry tried to squash this
technology before somewhat belatedly realizing that they could sell
and rent copies to consumers. And since the 1980s home video has been
the film industry's biggest source of revenue!
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On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 06:31:01 -0400, Timothy Horrigan <horrigan@aol.com> wrote:
The color copier was only a minor technological advancement. Black
and white copiers had been around since the 1960s or earlier; color
photography had been around since the 1930s; black and white
photography had been around since the 1850s. As far as I know, the
laws governing those three technologies were directly applicable to
color photocopying. Those laws generally state that you are allowed
to make copies of images for private use, academic study, etc., but
you aren't allowed to use them commercially (except in certain ways as
part of a parody, academic research paper, political commentary, etc.)
Could you quote me the text of one of these laws. I don't believe
any such statutes exist.
There is a fair use statute, but it is far less direct than you suggest.
Commercial use is only one factor of the analysis. In Acuff-Rose
the Supreme Court held that no single factor analysis was sufficient
to determine fair use.
Isaac
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Isaac wrote:
Could you quote me the text of one of these laws. I don't believe
any such statutes exist.
There are SOME exemptions for educational use, not contained
within the "fair use" clause. They are nowhere NEAR as
extensive as Mr. Horrigan believes, but there are some.
--
This account is subject to a persistent MS Blaster and SWEN attack.
I think I've got the problem resolved, but, if you E-mail me
and it bounces, a second try might work.
However, please reply in newsgroup.
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