Mr. Kurtz submits a useful article on a bogus online copyright case in Nevada. I'll skip the details and go right to the salient point in the U.S. District Court of Nevada's ruling on copyright and fair use:
...the act of posting this five-sentence excerpt of a fifty sentence news article on a political discussion forum is a fair use pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 107, and that the fair use doctrine provides a complete defense to the claim of copyright infringement from which this suit arose [Judge Roger L. Hunt, United States District Court for the District of Nevada, Righthaven v. Democratic Underground, 2012.03.09].
The ruling does not make clear that 10% is an upper bound. But it does make clear that if your quote is up to 10% of the original, you're safe online. Bloggers and commenters alike, blockquote away!
Let me get this straight: at least 10% of what this interested party does is useful, right?
What about using images?
"... If your quote is up to 10% of the original, you’re safe online."
Cory, I wouldn't say that straightaway. How about 10 percent of a large novel? How about 10 percent of a large article from the "Encyclopaedia Britannica"? How about 10 percent of a massive physics textboook?
Larry, as in marriage, I find it better not to keep score.
Michael, no images were involved in this case. However, I'd be interested to hear whether we can translate the math from lines to pixels! Let's ask plumber Derek Cecil...
By the way, the link I posted to my own site (the huge type) is designed for tablet computers and e-readers with Wi-Fi capability.
Think Nook Tablet, Kindle Fire, or iPad (preferably the new one, which has me drooling).
All this business about fair use and copyright and piracy and SOPA and PIPA and POOPA is starting to look silly to me.
We're trying to preserve dinosaurs. We are failing. The climate has changed, and the dinosaurs are doomed.
As an author I'm ready to toss out the whole paradigm of "static books" in favor of "dynamic books." The content will change constantly, day to day, even hour to hour. Ideal for educational, self-teaching, and reference material, a "dynamic book" cannot be pirated. By the time someone did make the effort to pirate a work to which people subscribe for 99 cents a month, the bootleg content would be obsolete anyway.
If you're reading this blant (blog rant) on a tablet, click on my name above to get an idea of what I mean. It ain't no secret here. In fact, the more people spread the word, the better. You can't steal something that I'm giving away.
Pirates, here's one on you: Ye-all are the dinosaurs! Goodbye!
Ooo, touché, Stan! Perhaps we should read this ruling even more narrowly, applying it just to news articles... though even there, I wonder where the threshold lies. I can imagine some hefty news reports where quoting 10% of the text might be pushing it. Do you have a perceived (or legally precedented) threshold of fair use for the textbooks you write?
Not really, Cory. I've stopped worrying about it.
You can find and download illegal copies of most of my books just by doing a Google search on my name and spending a quarter of an hour at a computer with a good Internet connection.
And there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop you.
All is fair in love and war.
By the way, feel free to steal and spread around all of the content that you'll find when you click on my name at the top of this blant.
I wrote the stuff in college, in 1975-76, in the hot-and-cold study carrels in the attic of the Chi Psi Lodge, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
Wikimathematics!
Here's another take on fair use. Try a google search on the phrase "complex-number impedance." (Make sure to innclude the dash.) The first hit that I get, when I perform this action, is
http://www.education.com/study-help/article/physics-help-more-about-current-rlc/
This passage comes right out of one of my books. Even the art has been reproduced perfectly.
Okay. Does this operation constitute fair use on the part of the people who did it? At first one might say no. However, I do not have the slightest objection. In fact I feel honored. Note the icon down below, where you get the option to buy the relevant work from Amazon.
The gray waters grow grayer still!
Click on my name at the top of this particular paroxysm for still more fun with your Nook Tablet, Kindle Fire, or iPad.
This is a very good thread. Suffice it to say that protecting fair use is essential to a healthy and vibrant republic of cyberspace.