I Love Fair Use
A few days ago, Rachelle Gardner raised the topic of what writers have to pay for rather than the publisher. One of the things is permissions to use various copyrighted materials. In the comment section, the topic moved from what writers pay for to a discussion of copyright and fair use . Visit the Stanford University website if you want a well written discussion of fair use . What I want to do is to make some general observations as a writer and not as a legal expert. We may be tempted to think that fair use has to do with things like how much of something we copy, such as a percentage of the whole, or how much money we make from selling the work we copy. I’ve seen several people make this mistake. In actual fact, U.S. copyright law is not very clear on what is and is not fair use . There’s a reason for it not being clear. The principle of fair use is deeply rooted in the principle of freedom of speech . We need the principle of fair use because when we comment, criticize or parod...