Fair(y) Use

Looking at the date of my last post, I have been incredibly remiss about this blog. I've been much better about the one you'll find on the link list to the right, but that one's not for legal issues (usually.) There's actually been some interesting developments in the law over the past couple of month and I will try to get to them here.

First off, though, I want to commend "A Fair(y) Use Tale" as a primer on copyright law before the Walt Disney Company does something to get it off line. I'm pretty sure that the creator of the video has a good argument for the fair use of the Disney material (it takes only as much as necessary to make its point, it doesn't interfere with the market for the original, it's transformative, it's educational, commentary AND parody.) That doesn't mean that he or she will avoid the wrath of the Mouse House because, as we learned from the Air Pirates case long ago, you don't f@#% with the Mouse. This video will teach you the basics of copyright law in about 10 minutes.