The Misuse of Fair Use

[foresthouse]

You guys, the recent shutdown of scans_daily has precipitated yet another flurry of misuses of the concept of fair use. Now, believe it or not, I actually *do* have stuff to do other than post about this stuff, but I just wanted to make a brief foray into the misunderstandings again, in hopes that this might help *someone* out there understand how

Comments

[q42]

Thanks for the heads up and explanation of this, I actually have a fair amount of interest in legal matters of this kind, and this touched on aspects I did not know.

Also where did you get that icon? I love that show, but have yet to see the rest...

[foresthouse]

No problem!

The quote is from "Fever" and the picture is from the one where Bernard gambles. I made the icon. :) There are more Black Books icons from me at theiconolatrist.

Black Books is a fantastic show! All three seasons are comedy gold.

[kijikun]

#3), there were whole comics posted
The only 'whole' comics posted I believe were ones out of copyright. The only whole comics I can remember were EC, Creepy, and some of the older Romance comics and even then I think the comics posted from those might have been complete stories but not the whole content of that particular issues of magazine.

Edit: I'm not saying this changes things, but I'm tired of people acting like we were posting full scans of comics.

[foresthouse]

Well, I personally read several full Deadpool comics in the archives there from the 1997 run. Those are definitely still covered under copyright. I can't attest one way of the other for everything, but I know for a fact those were on there.

Don't get me wrong - I loved the community and am sad it went away. I'm just saying, I know there were some whole issues up.

[kijikun]

At what point were they posted? If they were from some of the early years they might have been posted before we had stricter moderation. Or they were from a trade.

It is in general problematic to tell people not familiar with scans_daily that were were whole issues of anything up. Since they will assume it makes the community the same as any torrent pirating site. While s_d was violating copy right, we still should not be placed in the same category as those sites.

[foresthouse]

Since the site is gone, I can only say that they were in the archives. I can't remember when they were from.

In my opinion I am stating facts above - there were some whole issues up, as well as some posts that just had one or two scans. I don't think anything I said makes it look like it was anything like a torrent site. I'm not trying to make the comm look bad - heck, I was a member. But it's a fact that they were there.

If you read either of the other posts I wrote, which are linked here, it should be obvious that I think it was too bad scans_daily had to go, and that I think it was a valuable resource.

[revid]

Thank you for the explanation. I must admit I had never heard of scans_daily before yesterday, but the whole thing has been sort of fascinating. Too bad both sides won't read this.

[foresthouse]

It is too bad, isn't it? The problem with fair use and the misunderstandings on the internet is that people will sometimes say, "I don't get it" but then they will take a look at something like what I've posted and go, "OMG SO MANY WORDS" and not always read it. Which, you know, I'm not saying I blame them. It can be tricky to understand these things. But I figured I'd put it out here for people like you who might actually want to read it. :)

[pt 1 of 3]

[raattgift]

Firstly, your link to the Patry article was enjoyable wrt
his thinking on joint authorship.

Secondly, a lot of what you wrote is pretty agreeable.

However, this part was not:

1) Fair use is an affirmative defense, not a
legal right. People forget this. People always forget
this. You can't say, "I have the right to do this
because of the copyright law of fair use." You can say,
"If a copyright owner comes after me and sues me, I can
defend my use by arguing that it was fair under the
law. IF it meets the criteria according to the judge of
my case, then my use was fair."

Um, so? Any discussion of (non-criminal) copyright

[pt 2 of 3]

[raattgift]

[cont from prev

Re: [pt 3 of 3]

[raattgift]

Despite your fairly clear understanding of and references
to private copyright law, I can't understand: "As it
stood, scans_daily was, in large part, in violation of
copyrights of the various companies." The test throughout
17 USC is one of infringement and infringing use.
"Violation" is a concept of public law, and belongs in the
DNW copyright discussion vocabulary list with "illegal",
"guilty" and "criminal", which probably cause your teeth
to grind a bit too :-)

As it stood, scans_daily was, in large part,
in violation of copyrights of the various
companies.
(ITYM "infringing on" not "in violation of

Re: [pt 3 of 3]

[foresthouse]

Hi there

[soleta_nf]

Very interesting write-up. Thank you. :)

[foresthouse]

No problem. :)