Re: [tlug] Quoting & Listmaster?

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Lyle" == Lyle H Saxon <Lyle> writes:

    >> A complaint of infringement would be sustained, too.  Your
    >> quoting was well above the "too small to be actionable" level,
    >> but *not* fair use;

    Lyle> I may have quoted a little much... but whether it was fair
    Lyle> use or not is open to debate and not so out of bounds to
    Lyle> qualify for your "but *not* fair use" statement.

You are correct.  "Fair use" is "rule of reason", so by definition
it's open to debate.

However, you can read the guidelines in the law (U.S. Code Title 17,
Section 107[1]), and in the rationale document circulated in the House
before that Section was added.  The examples given are all cases where
the expression itself needs to available to understand what is being
said about it.  Another example I've seen elsewhere is in cases where
somebody's intemperate words find their way into a newspaper article
or the like; then the quote serves to prove that nuances are not
misrepresented.

AFAIK in this respect Japanese law is similar to U.S.  I don't know
about other countries; the scope of "fair use" seems likely to be
something greatly affected by culture, history, and custom.

    >> there is no reason why you could not have paraphrased, except
    >> that it would take more effort.

    Lyle> That's rude.

Possibly, although I tried to avoid that by inserting footnote 1.
Nonetheless, there is no reason I can see that would be acknowledged
by a judge as fair use, within my knowledge.

Note that claiming "I assert my right of fair use" will get you the
right to pay damages to the rightsholder.  The burden is on you to
justify your use as fair, to the judge, while the rightsholder is
explicitly granted all rights exclusively.

    Lyle> It would have been just as easy to steal the material and
    Lyle> dilute it by rewriting it with meaningless general terms -
    Lyle> which is what many of the sites with that info have done.

Exactly, and that is precisely the intention of copyright law---to
ensure that facts are in the public domain, while expression is the
property of the author.

    Lyle> Is the writer of the original really happier to have his/her
    Lyle> material stolen and mutated into junk, or quoted with a link
    Lyle> to their full article?  I would think the later!

The presumption is the former.  His copyright notice was "All Rights
Reserved."  You could very well be correct about his preference, but
you'll have to ask him.  You didn't.  Therefore you infringed his
copyright, unless you can show fair use.  That is independent of
whether the author would wish to prosecute.  (Copyright is unlike
trademark; you have the right to stop infringement, no matter how long
you have knowingly permitted it to go on, unless you have given
specific license.)

This is not legal advice, I am not a lawyer, this is not your
beautiful wife, and the revolution will not be televised.

Nonetheless, copyright law is a subject of great interest to advocates
of free, libre, and open source software.  I Hope This Helps (and not
just Lyle, whose statements are reasonable, except in that they don't
acknowledge that the law has reasons whereof reason knows not :-).


Footnotes: 
[1]  I need to go home, so no URL, but if you google for that and go
to the LII site, hosted by Cornell University, you'll get the whole
shebang.

-- 
School of Systems and Information Engineering http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.