Re: Re: poets and the right to quote

>Quotation for the purpose of review or criticism is an accepted fair
>use. Mr. Olsen was duped -- although I'm sure I would make noise, too,
>if my work was being quoted and criticized. However, the fair use would
>only extend to copying so much of the work as is necessary to make a
>point -- not the entire work in most cases.
>
>Michael R
>

I think you are right, although there are many examples where whole poems have been quoted within the framework of a critical text.

Stephen M. Stewart says the following in his "International Copyright and Neighbouring Rights" (1983) about the revision of the convention from 1971 as opposed to the revision made in 1948 - "the Brussels Act 1948 still said 'short extracts'":

     2. The quotation must be 'compatible with fair
     practice'. This leaves a great deal of discretion to
     the courts. However, (a) the length of the quotation
     itself, (the Brussels Act 1948 still said 'short
     extracts') (b) whether the size of the quotation is a
     large or a small part of the work quoted, (c) the size
     of the quotation in relation to the item in which it is
     used, are all criteria to be applied by the courts.
    
     3. The extent of the quotation must 'not exceed that
     justified by the purpose'. Thus a piece of literary
     criticism may justify long quotations, whereas a
     newspaper article may only justify much shorter ones.
     (Stewart, 1983, p. 124)

(BTW, does anybody on the list have a used copy of Stewart's great book to sell - I have only borrowed mine.)

Well, the following is old material but interesting anyway. W.A. Copinger discusses fair use and the quantity of quotation (from "The Law of Copyright", 1904):

     Many cases of extracts for criticism have come before
     the court. It is obvious that quotations to some extent
     must in such cases be made from the work reviewed, and
     this abstract right of the reviewer has never been
     impeached. To deny this privilege would be, as Lord
     Kinloch once said, "to sentence to death all our
     reviews, and the greater part of our works in
     philosophy." The reviewer may make extracts sufficient
     to show the merits or demerits of the work, but not to
     such an extent as that the review may serve as a
     substitute for the book reviewed. Sufficient may be
     taken to give a correct view of the whole, but the
     privilege of making extracts is limited to these
     objects, and no person will be allowed to republish in
     the form of quotations a valuable part of the protected
     work and thus to an injurious extent to supersede the
     original (b).
    
     Whether the limits of lawful quotation have been
     exceeded is a question to be governed by the particular
     circumstances of each case.
    
     In a case in which the work alleged to be
     pirated was a play extending over forty pages, and the
     defendant had published a journal of theatrical
     criticism in which, as illustrative of his critical
     remarks, he had introduced broken and detached
     fragments of the piece in question, amounting in the
     whole to six or seven pages, some weight appears to
     have been allowed by the court to the fact of the
     extent of the extracts being so inconsiderable, as
     affording ground for doubt whether the defendant had
     transgressed the limits of fair quotation (a).
     (Copinger, 1904, pp 159-160)

Copinger also accounts for a case, Campbell v. Scott (1842) where Scott had published a "Book of the Poets":

     Where the defendant had published a 'Book of the
     Poets,' with the object of illustrating the
     characteristics of various poets, and the progress of
     English poetry during the nineteenth century, the work
     was held to be piratical. The defendant had made 425
     selections and extracts, from forty-three poets, and
     they were employed to illustrate an original essay of
     thirty-four pages on English poetry of the period
     covered, twenty-three biographical sketches of one page
     each, and twenty shorter notices of authors. Besides
     extracts, six poems - in all of which the copyright was
     still subsisting - were taken in their entirety from
     Campbell's works. "If," said Vice-Chancellor Shadwell,
     "there were critical notes appended to each separate
     passage, or to several of the passages in succession
     which might illustrate them, and show from whence Mr.
     Campbell had borrowed an idea, or what idea he had
     communicated to others, I could understand that to be
     a fair criticism. But there is, first of all, a general
     essay, then there follows a mass of pirated matters,
     which in fact constitutes the value of the volume" (a).
     (Copinger, 1904, p 164)

Karl-Erik Tallmo

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