Copyright law
The spirit of the Fair Use clause of copyright law is not intended for blatant copying of text. It was, in a case like this, intended to allow Inside Charm City to provide commentary to an existing article. The idea of copying without commentary, of critical or comical nature, has long been established under US law.
While the idea of newspapers pursuing this legal course is one for another discussion, the legal theory behind their use of fair use in the case seems sound to me.
One of the main problems is that like the newspapers, copyright law is in a chaotic time, so no solution seems amicable to the end user looking for the information from any source.
“Another plan was to educate the public about the behaviors required of them by copyright law.”
- Shirky’s piece about online journalism
…and yet, newspapers like The Baltimore Sun have yet to define explicit fair-use guidelines. The blog Inside Charm City was recently sent a cease and desist by The Sun for quoting part of an article. According to The Sun:
“…copying anything more than a headline or one paragraph form an article plainly constitutes copyright infringement.”
Except, that isn’t spelled out anywhere. It only states:
“The fair use doctrine permits the republishing of a minimal amount of content when accompanied by new commentary or criticism.”
Completely vague. Define minimal. An argument could be made that Inside Charm City was operating well within the limits of fair-use. These so-called plans the newspapers have for educating the public about fair-use need to be accelerated.
