Re: including e-mail story in my book

On July 16, 1998, William Shadish <shadish[_at_]mail.psyc.memphis.edu> wrote:
>
> I have also found an opinion on this fair use matter of the commercial
> purpose that in order for this criterion to apply, the material must
> add materially to the value of the commercial product.

The fair use ememption to the Copyright Law, Vol.17 of the U.S. Code, Section 107, permits a user to violate the exclusive right of the copyright holder after a consideration of 4 factors; 1) the purpose and characater of the use, including whether such use is commercial or for nonprofit educational purposes; 2) the nature of the copyrighted work; 3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used related to the copyrighted work as a whole ; and 4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

While this does not totally answer your question, I think it gives some guidelines as to what has to be considered. It is possible that court decisions have held that the material copied must also add materially to the value of the commercial product.

Madelyn Littman
flw_mcl[_at_]msn.com Received on Fri Jul 17 1998 - 19:40:15 GMT