Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright First Edition

Informative, educational, practical and inspiring. This is an essential book for artists and filmmakers using source material. The authors clearly explain the rights that creatives have and often overlook. Also important for instructors and writers who need to reference other imagery in their work. Every person who creates new meaning through creative work should own this resource.

More than fulfilled the needs for my research...

The language is easy. This book was very useful for me as a journalist. Now I know smth more about my legal and creative rights

Comprehensive & thorough. A super educational read.

The book on Docs

Copyright has hit the headlines this year for the problems of digitisation. The book by Aufderheide and Jaszi addreses these problems, and more, in a concise and readable way, although it has to be said that it is a book by americans for the US market. In the UK, the equivalent concept is "fair dealing". The idea that one can copy parts of a copyright text or image without consulting the copyright holder is a very old one, because how else can one criticize or comment on a work without doing so? Indeed, by quoting a text in a review, say, it is giving publicity to a book and so maybe helping its sales, which must be good for the copyright owners, usually the author and the publisher. Digitisation has brought the concept into focus owing to the ease of copying and broadcasting that work to the whole world over the internet. That has not only raised the old problem of wholesale piracy but also how far fair use can go within the confines of the law. One particular problem arose from the large scale scanning of books by Google, which made them available on its website. For old books where the author is long dead (Dickens, Shakespeare etc), there is no problem, but since copyright is a long lasting right (70 years after the death of the author), there is a problem for more recent in-copyright works. This is why there is a major unresolved dispute between authors and Google. But yet the same company uses the doctrine of fair use in its search pages. For example, thumbnails of images are an essential part of the image search, to which no author objects at all. Without fair use, we would have no image search at all. But there is mounting evidence that copyright is being abused by major copyright holders, or indeed, some non-copyright holders. For example, many libraries hold extensive old photographs which are either not in copyright at all (being created before the copyright act established the right) or the copyright has expired. But since they may hold unique examples, they insist potential users to sign a license which means they can claim a fee for use of that image. Although that issue is not discussed in this book, it covers most of the controversial issues, some of which remain unresolved pending further legislation. It is essential reading for all those authors who worry about digitisation, as well as the public who want to know the fair limits of their rights in copying.

Fair use and copyrights in general can be a complicated subject, but the authors did an excellent job explaining the content and issues. Do not need a legal background. Would recommend to anyone who has an interest in the subject or works with any form of media.

Reclaiming Fair Use is an extremely valuable scholarly work in the field of copyright law. It allows documentary filmmakers, educators and others to develop their own balanced, legal, common sense guidelines for fair use of copyright works. Filled with many examples of legal case studies and "best practices" guidelines for many fields, it deserves a place alongside the excellent books written on the subject by Michael Donaldson.

Copyright has hit the headlines this year for the problems of digitisation. The book by Aufderheide and Jaszi addreses these problems, and more, in a concise and readable way, although it has to be said that it is a book by americans for the US market. In the UK, the equivalent concept is "fair dealing". The idea that one can copy parts of a copyright text or image without consulting the copyright holder is a very old one, because how else can one criticize or comment on a work without doing so? Indeed, by quoting a text in a review, say, it is giving publicity to a book and so maybe helping its sales, which must be good for the copyright owners, usually the author and the publisher. Digitisation has brought the concept into focus owing to the ease of copying and broadcasting that work to the whole world over the internet. That has not only raised the old problem of wholesale piracy but also how far fair use can go within the confines of the law. One particular problem arose from the large scale scanning of books by Google, which made them available on its website. For old books where the author is long dead (Dickens, Shakespeare etc), there is no problem, but since copyright is a long lasting right (70 years after the death of the author), there is a problem for more recent in-copyright works. This is why there is a major unresolved dispute between authors and Google. But yet the same company uses the doctrine of fair use in its search pages. For example, thumbnails of images are an essential part of the image search, to which no author objects at all. Without fair use, we would have no image search at all. But there is mounting evidence that copyright is being abused by major copyright holders, or indeed, some non-copyright holders. For example, many libraries hold extensive old photographs which are either not in copyright at all (being created before the copyright act established the right) or the copyright has expired. But since they may hold unique examples, they insist potential users to sign a license which means they can claim a fee for use of that image. Although that issue is not discussed in this book, it covers most of the controversial issues, some of which remain unresolved pending further legislation. It is essential reading for all those authors who worry about digitisation, as well as the public who want to know the fair limits of their rights in copying.