"Gervase Markham" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
[EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > It would appear that what I propose doing is both morally and legally
sound,
> > and a legitimate endeavour to protect copyrighted material. The article
> > makes it clear that "fair use' is not a right granted by either existing
> > legislation or treaty
>
> It depends how you look at it. The Universal Copyright Convention
> (international law) makes specific provision for countries to create fair
> use rights as they feel appropriate - a well-designed loophole. Section
> IVbis:
> http://www.cni.org/docs/infopols/US.Universal.Copyright.Conv.html
>
The lawyer's article to which I referred you specifically says that "fair
use" is not a right, but rather a defense of copyright infringement. As I
am not a lawyer, I will take his word for that, and, if I face a legal
challenge on the issue, I know where to find an expert in copyright law.
:-)
The Section to which you refer is:
=======quote from the UCC document to which you refer============
Article IVbis
The rights referred to in Article I shall include the basic rights ensuring
the author's economic interests, including the exclusive right to authorize
reproduction by any means, public performance and broadcasting. The
provisions of this Article shall extend to works protected under this
Convention either in their original form or in any form recognizably derived
from the original.
However, any Contracting State may, by its domestic legislation, make
exceptions that do not conflict with the spirit and provisions of this
Convention, to the rights mentioned in paragraph 1 of this Article. Any
State whose legislation so provides, shall nevertheless accord a reasonable
degree of effective protection to each of the rights to which exception has
been made.
================end quote===============================
I do not see any mention, here, of "fair use rights". Some explanation is
in order, therefore, to justify your claim that this provides for fair use
rights.
This section of the UCC makes it clear that any exceptions a contracting
state makes must not conflict with the spirit and provisions of Article I,
which declares an author's basic rights ensuring his economic interests,
including the exclusive right to authorize reproduction by any means, public
performance and broadcasting. This does not impose any obligation
whatsoever on the author to either allow or facilitate any particular use of
his work, and indeed, any law in a contracting state that would impose such
an obligation would clearly be in violation of the spirit and provisions of
Article I.
> > but rather that it is an occassionally successful
> > defense of copyright infringement.
>
> That's definitely not true in the US and the UK, and I'd be very surprised
> if it was true in Canada. Fair use is not "how much you can get away with"
> but an established legal use based on the above part of international
> copyright law.
>
I reported only what I read in the Canadian lawyer's article. Judging from
where he is working, I would expect that he is a specialist in Canadian and
international copyright law. I thus have no grounds on which to quarrel
with him. Can you refer me to an url of a document giving the details of
legislation in Canada, the US or the UK that defines fair use rights, and
associated obligations to be imposed on authors or publishers, along with an
explanation of how that can be justified given the provisions of the UCC?
Or perhaps an article by a lawyer who is a specialist in copyright law where
such an explanation is provided?
I do see in the UCC to which you refer that states may "make exceptions that
do not conflict with the spirit and provisions of this Convention", but
clearly the qualification required of such exceptions would preclude any
legal requirement imposed on an author or publisher to facilitate any
particular use of copyrighted materials, especially when such a use would
significantly jeopardize their economic interests involving their
intellectual property.
I just read the UCC in its entirety, and nowhere does it mention so-called
"fair use rights".
It also seems to me to be a difficult leap to go from fair use provisions,
where specific uses are permitted, to mandating that an author must
facilitate such uses. It is one thing to say that you can quote verbatim a
few sentences from an article or book. It is quite another to mandate that
I, as an author, must make doing so easy even if doing so would also make it
easy for my rights as an author to be flagrantly violated in uses that are
not permitted (e.g. if the technology in question was such that the same
method used to quote a few sentences could also be used to make copies of
the entire work which could then easily be uploaded to various websites
around the world for free access to anyone who was interested in getting my
work for free).
Cheers,
Ted
