Posts under ‘fair use’

While browsing O’Reilly Media for information about accessibility of their PDF ebooks, I found this statement about “Acceptable Use”.

Plagiarism is constantly in the news these days, as it was in 2006 when Harvard student Kaavya Viswanathan’s How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got A Life was exposed as less then original. But, as we know, claims of literary plagiarism go back centuries. So why do people still get so worked up about it? Mike Pesca reflects on the past, present and future of plagiarism.

Fair Use is a multimedia exhibition that looks at how the copying, sampling, and recycling of existing material is being used as a creative tool in contemporary culture. The exhibition sets out to foster discussion through the examination of work by contemporary artists and designers who develop alternatives to the way we share ideas, images and objects.

As the song by Aqua goes, “Life is plastic. It’s fantastic.” You can quote that much and claim the protection of fair use. Appropriate much more of the song, or the iconic 50-something doll the song celebrates, and Mattel’s IP police may come knocking at your door. The Learned Fangirl makes a compelling case for [...]

AHEAD, the Association on Higher Education and Disability, has an excellent position statement on fair use and accessible texts for students with disabilities. Here is AHEAD’s analysis of Section 121 of the U.S. Copyright Act (the Chafee Amendment):
In 1996, the U.S. Copyright Law (Section 121) was amended to allow authorized entities to reproduce or distribute [...]