The Stanford Center for Internet and Society's "Fair Use Project" ("the FUP") was founded in 2006 to provide legal support to a range of projects designed to clarify, and extend, the boundaries of "fair use" in order to enhance creative freedom.
The Stanford Center for Internet and Society's "Fair Use Project" ("the FUP") was founded in 2006 to provide legal support to a range of projects designed to clarify, and extend, the boundaries of "fair use" in order to enhance creative freedom.
The Fair Use Project has launched the Documentary Film Program, providing filmmakers with information about fair use, access to insurance for liability arising out of copyright litigation, and access to lawyers who will defend copyright claims pro bono or at reduced rates.
On November 3, the motion for summary judgment on behalf of Brian Transeau (BT) was argued before Hon. William H. Pauley, federal district court judge for the Southern District of New York.
Plaintiffs conceded BT had no access to the copyrighted work that they allege he copied. They therefore attempted to prove that BT’s work in “Aparthenonia” was so "strikingly similar" to plaintiffs’ work as to preclude the possibility of independent creation.
Here is a very encouraging case from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Blanch v. Koons.
Visual artist Jeff Koons is no stranger to the courts. Specializing in what some call appropriation art, he borrows pop-culture images in order to comment on the culture that generates and consumes them. This has gotten him sued more than once. And he has lost more than once.
This time, he won. Although he admitted to scanning part of a photograph that appeared in Allure magazine and using it in his collage, Niagara, he did so precisely because it was a fashion magazine photograph -- and thus the subject and target of his commentary. The Court held that this was fair use largely because of the transformative nature of the work.
This case vindicates our right to borrow, use and transform the culture that surrounds us as an element of our own expression. This example happens to concern borrowing from visual art. But ask yourself this: if we can "sample" a fashion photograph in order to create something new and transformative, shouldn't we able to do likewise in other mediums? Music, for instance?
To view Niagara and the photograph used in it, click here.
Last August, film-maker Javier Prato received a cease and desist letter from Universal Music, who complained that his short film, “Jesus Christ: The Musical,” was infringing their copyright in Gloria Gaynor's “I Will Survive.
Harry Surden is a resident fellow at the Stanford Center for Computers and the Law (Codex). He came to Codex following a clerkship at the United States District Court in San Francisco. Harry graduated from Stanford Law School in 2005, and prior to that, he worked as a software engineer for Cisco Systems and Bloomberg Financial Markets. Harry is the Stanford Center for Computers and the Law's inaugural resident fellow.
Anthony Falzone is the Executive Director of the Fair Use Project. Before that, he was a partner with Bingham McCutchen LLP where he specialized in intellectual property litigation. He has advised and defended a wide variety of individuals and companies including writers, publishers, musicians and video game makers on copyright, trademark, rights of publicity and other intellectual property matters.
CodeX
Learn about how Stanford Law School is at the forefront of interdisciplinary law and computer-science research. The Stanford Center for Computers and the Law (CodeX) is a multi-disciplinary research center jointly run by Stanford Law School and the Stanford School of Engineering. Taking advantage of multiple advances in computer theory over the last ten years, Codex aims to improve society's interaction with the law by applying new technologies to existing legal problems. Codex projects range from studying how to represent laws so that computers can understand and reason about them, to developing an online exchange where intellectual property rights can be bought and sold with little transaction cost. Stanford Law School is the first law school in the country to create such a collaborative engineering school /law school research center.
Fair Use Project
While technology has provided us with an unprecedented ability to participate in our culture by using, sharing and manipulating the content that helps create and define our culture, your right to participate in this culture in this manner is disappearing at an alarming rate. Copyright and other intellectual property protections have expanded radically in scope and duration. Enforcement as never been more aggressive. What was once a rich public domain has been all but eliminated. Will you have the right participate, or merely consume?
The future boundaries of Fair Use and related principles will largely shape the answer to that question. The Fair Use Project is a brand-new undertaking by Lawrence Lessig and the Center for Internet and Society. It's mission is to clarify, define and expand Fair Use rights and other related principles through litigation and other activities. Come hear what we're up to -- and how you can (and should) help.
Lessig will argue at the Appeal in Kahle v. Ashcroft at 9AM November 13, 2006. A post by the Plaintiff Brewster Kahle.
Golan v. Gonzales has been briefed and argued in the Tenth Circuit, and we are awaiting a decision. Government's brief is here.