Re: Principles of fair use

From: david dailey <david.dailey[_at_]sru.edu>
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 17:30:01 -0400

At 06:10 PM 8/15/2005, John Levine wrote:
>Are there any widely accepted sources to help evaluate a claim of fair
>use beyond the four factors in 17 USC 107? I realize that fair use is
>what a court says it is, but the courts must look to something to try
>and be consistent.

Several list-members here are more knowledgeable than I about the history surrounding this question, but I think it is safe to say that there have been numerous high-level policy discussions at both the national and international levels. CONFU (see for example

http://www.arl.org/newsltr/192/confu.html or 
http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/confu2.htm), CONTU 
(http://www.cni.org/docs/infopols/CONTU.html),  and the Uruguay 

treaty and TRIPS accords
(http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/ursum_e.htm) all come to mind.

CONFU and CONTU I think were initiatives from within the higher education and library communities to get representatives from the copyright holding industries (publishing, movies, software, visual arts, music) to sit down and see if all could agree on what fair use really means. Uruguay, among other things resulted in the creation of the World Trade Organization which has worked with WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) at times on various issues pertaining to fair use.

I'm not sure if all would agree, but my impression is that the various "stakeholders" have not been able to converge on sufficient agreement to create anything quite like what you ask for. I believe that none of the guidelines under discussion by CONFU were ultimately agreed upon. I think the courts tend to look to one another for judicial consistency rather than to any set of guidelines.

David Dailey Received on Wed Aug 17 2005 - 01:30:01 GMT