Re: Seinfeld, Transformation, Fair Use

On Fri, 27 Aug 1999, C. E. Petit <cepetit[_at_]usa.net> wrote::
>
> Which leads to a question:
>
> Wouldn't we be better off with a rebuttable presumption for quantity?
> of "quotation" for fair use? I always thought that a citizen was
> supposed to be able to conform his or her conduct to the law, and
> this is such a basic area that it shouldn't be left to chance.
> Remember all those high school reports with the note cards and the
> temptation to copy most of the encyclopedia article?

     Yes! I submit that copying up to 25% of a work should give rise to a rebuttable presumption of fair use. I like to copy parts of on-line articles and post them to e-lists. I usually copy about 10-20% and include the URL to the entire article. But it can be a pain wondering "am I copying too much." Many cyber articles on technology expressly state "pass this on and attribute it" but many do not.

     Twenty-five percent should be a US national baseline standard presumption. It is enough to get the gist of the work across and yet not so much as to violate a person's rights to compensation for the work. If one wants to use more than 25% they should either paraphrase or buy the entire work. This could be adjusted up or down depending on the nature of the work. Be we should have a standard set forth in percentages so people stop worrying about trivia and concentrate on sharing information to make others' lives better.

     As a judicial law clerk I saw countless instances of lawyers copying, word-for-word, case law language and failing to attribute it. This is not only plagiarism but really stupid. Tip: Citing the exact language of a case to the court with quotation marks and a pinpoint cite to a page is much better than ripping off a quote, because it allows the court to keep reading and it look it up later, compared to stooping reading to look it up, and then finding the lawyer simply plagiarized the court's language. It makes the brief writer look stupid, actually. I realize the problem is a rule of law can only be stated so many ways. Having read 1000s of brief in my time, I can only say I would rather read "too many" quoted passages than attorney interpretations of rules or simply plagiarizing court language without attribution. Such shenanigans took my mind off the argument at hand and put it onto the issue of the veracity of the writer.

Nick Zales
Zales Law Office
Milwaukee, WI
<zales[_at_]execpc.com> Received on Sat Aug 28 1999 - 12:28:16 GMT