Techdirt: Looking through the history of our posts on the topics of fair use and fair dealing, you find plenty of examples for why these exceptions to copyright law are so important. These exceptions are, at their heart, designed to be boons to the public in the form of an increased output in creative expression, educational material, and public commentary on matters of public interest by untethering the more restrictive aspects of copyright law from those efforts. Without fair use and fair dealing, copyright laws are open for use as weapons of censorship against unwanted content, rather than being used for their original purpose of increasing expression and content. Still, in the history of those posts, you might struggle to find what you would consider the perfect example of why fair use laws are necessary.
2 comments:
This seems an awful lot like they are using copyright as a way of trying to protect Bill Cosby’s reputation, which seems like a bit of a lost cause at this point. I agree that this case shows what the point of fair use is. Using those clips isn’t directly competing, or even indirectly competing with the source material. It is using small amounts of the content to make a point. Quite frankly, I’m sure BBC could’ve made the documentary without any content from The Cosby Show, but it probably helped with the context for the documentary, and will help make the documentary make sense to people in the future who don’t already know what The Cosby Show is. What I don’t get is what The Cosby Show thinks it is fighting. I assume the show is worthless or near worthless at this point. As far as I know it isn’t airing re-runs anymore, and I doubt they are selling all that many DVDs. It seems like a waste of money to fight for intellectual property that is no longer profitable.
For the most part I agree with most of this article. I think often copyright laws can be unfair, and prevents people from using material that is otherwise. I can see in this case and many others why fair use laws are so important. Without fair use laws, I think it would be very difficult to use any copyrighted material for artistic purposes. To take that idea a step further, I think that in many cases actually, copyright laws could actually be loosesned. For example, companies like Disney have extended I also agree with Julian. Why would Carsey-Werner care about the use of the Cosby Show? Is it because they are worried about people taking other material of thiers? Why does this little thing matter so much? I think this case study reveals a lot about how copyright laws work and their pitfalls.
Post a Comment