Google Books wins ‘fair use’ but Australian copyright lags

Australia wants to foster innovation in a digital economy, but our copyright laws discourage businesses from investing in new technologies and make it harder for individuals to access the knowledge upon which innovation is based. Yesterday’s US decision in the Google Books case shows why US copyright law is much more supportive of innovation than ours. This article argues that if the government is serious about encouraging private innovation, introducing fair use is crucially important.

Fair use and the future of copyright

The Australian Law Reform Commission’s Final Report, Copyright and the Digital Economy, recommends the introduction of a flexible fair use provision. In doing so, it has sought to develop a technology-neutral approach to copyright that is adaptive to new technologies and which promotes innovation.

Dr. Matthew Rimmer takes a closer look at Fair Use

For this week's Favorites of the Week, Dr. Matthew Rimmer wanted to focus in on some of the specific points that came up in the Congressional hearing on fair use earlier this week. While a bit different than our usual "favorites of the week" post, it's a really fantastic in-depth look at some of the issues, which I'm sure many of you will enjoy.

A fair use project for Australia: Copyright law and creative freedom

This essay provides a critical assessment of the Fair Use Project based at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. In evaluating the efficacy of the Fair Use Project, it is worthwhile considering the litigation that the group has been involved in, and evaluating its performance. Part 1 outlines the history of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, and the aims and objectives of the Fair Use Project. Part 2 considers the litigation in Shloss v. Sweeney over a biography concerning Lucia Joyce, the daughter of the avant-garde literary great, James Joyce. Part 3 examines the dispute over the Harry Potter Lexicon. Part 4 looks at the controversy over the Shepard Fairey poster of President Barack Obama, and the resulting debate with Associated Press. Part 5 of the essay considers the intervention of the Fair Use Project as an amicus curiae in the ‘Column case’. Part 6 explores the participation of the Fair Use Project as an amicus curiae in the litigation over 60 Years Later, an unauthorised literary sequel to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Part 7 of the essay investigates the role of the Fair Use project in disputes over copyright law and musical works. Part 8 investigates the role of the Fair Use Project as an advocate in disputes over copyright law, fair use, documentary films, and internet videos. The conclusion has main three arguments. First, it contends that Australia should establish a Fair Use Project to support creative artists in litigation over copyright exceptions. Second, it maintains that Australia should adopt a flexible, open-ended defence of fair use, and draw upon the rich jurisprudence in the United States on the fair use doctrine. Finally, this paper argues that support should be given at an international level to the proposal for a Treaty on Access to Knowledge.

Gone with the wind: copyright law and fair use

The copyright defence of fair use has been tested in a recent United States case involving the classic Gone with the wind. [Suntrust Bank, as Trustee of the Stephens Mitchell trusts v Houghton Mifflin Company (2001) 136 F. Supp. 2d 1357; and Suntrust Bank, as Trustee of the Stephens Mitchell trusts v Houghton Mifflin Company (2001) US Appeal Lexis 21690.]

Reclaiming fair use: How to put balance back in copyright

This lively book, Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright, is designed to liberate people from the "Mind Forg'd Manacles" of copyright law. The authors - film and media scholar Patricia Aufderheide and professor of law and stalwart defender of the public interest Peter Jaszi - hope to help readers "understand how to think about and use copyright, and especially your right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment when you make a work - whether a blog entry, a song, a mashup, a poem, a documentary, a magazine article, a lesson plan, a scholarly archive, a slide show, a technical manual, a scrapbook, a collage, or a brochure"...

The fight for fair use in Australia: Copyright law in an age of cloud computing

Fair Use Week has celebrated the evolution and development of the defence of fair use under copyright law in the United States. As Krista Cox noted, ‘As a flexible doctrine, fair use can adapt to evolving technologies and new situations that may arise, and its long history demonstrates its importance in promoting access to information, future innovation, and creativity.’ While the defence of fair use has flourished in the United States, the adoption of the defence of fair use in other jurisdictions has often been stymied. Professor Peter Jaszi has reflected: ‘We can only wonder (with some bemusement) why some of our most important foreign competitors, like the European Union, haven’t figured out that fair use is, to a great extent, the “secret sauce” of U.S. cultural competitiveness.’ Jurisdictions such as Australia have been at a dismal disadvantage, because they lack the freedoms and flexibilities of the defence of fair use.

Who killed fair use? A copyright murder mystery down under

Fair Use Week has been celebrated this week in the United States, with great gusto and enthusiasm. At Harvard Library, Kyle Courtney commented: ‘Fair use is critical and important to innovation, scholarship and research in the United States.’ Kenneth Crews emphasized that ‘the new technological ventures, like other creative pursuits, require fair use and other copyright limitations for experimentation and success.’ Legal director Corynne McSherry of the Electronic Frontier Foundation has highlighted the significance and the importance of the defence of fair use: ‘Fair use provides breathing space in copyright law, making sure that control of the right to copy and distribute doesn’t become control of the right to create and innovate.’ For Techdirt, Mike Masnick has emphasized that fair use is a right – and not an exception or a mere defence. Peter Jaszi and Pat Aufderheide have highlighted the contextual operation of fair use in particular artistic communities. Molly Van Houweling of the Authors Alliance has written about the ecstasy of influence – the role of inspiration and appropriation in all acts of artistic creation. Fair use has been celebrated as a many-splendored legal creation.

American lessons: Implementing fair use in Australia

This article discusses the recent Australian Law Reform Commission report proposing a fair use defense to copyright infringement in Australia. It examines the experience of fair use cases in the United States and draws three lessons from the jurisprudential history. First, it suggests that decisions in fair use can only really be understood within a theoretical framework, and that unless we import that framework into Australia any fair use defense will not work as expected. Secondly, the article argues that the area where fair use jurisprudence appears to be most helpful, in dealing with “transformative” works, is actually much more limited than outsiders to the US would expect. And finally, it suggests that any implementation of a factor related to market substitution should take account of the gaming of the system that has gone on in the US.

Copyright, fair use and the Australian Constitution

There has been much debate over recent years about whether Australian copyright law should adopt a fair use doctrine. In this chapter we argue by pointing to the historical record that the incorporation of the term 'copyrights' in the Australian Constitution embeds a notion of balance and fair use in Australian law and that this should be taken into account when interpreting the Australian Copyright Act 1968. English case law in the 18th and 19th centuries developed a principle that copyright infringement did not occur where a person had made a fair use of a work. Fair use was generally established where the defendant had made a productive use that did more than alter the original work for the purpose of evading liability, and where the defendant had made an original contribution to the resulting work. Additionally, fairness was shown by a use that did not supersede or prejudice the market for the original work. At the time of including the copyright power in the Constitution, the UK Parliament’s understanding of “copyrights” included the notion of fair use as it had been developed in U.K. precedent. In this chapter we argue that the work “copyrights” in the Australia Constitution takes its definition from copyright in 1900 and as it has evolved since. Importantly, the word “copyrights” is infused with a particular meaning that incorporates the principle of copyright balance. The constitutional notion of copyright, therefore, is not that of an unlimited power to prevent all copying. Rather, copyright distinguishes between infringing copying and non-infringing copying and grants to the copyright owner only the power to control the former. Non-infringing copying includes well-accepted limitations on the copyright owner’s rights, including the copying of ideas, the copying of public domain works and the copying of insubstantial parts of copyrighted works. In this chapter we argue that non-infringing copying also includes copying to make a fair use of a work. The sections that distinguish infringing copying from non-infringing copying in the Copyright Act 1968 are sections 36(1) and 101(1), which define infringement as the doing, without licence, of an “act comprised in the copyright”. An infringing copy is an act comprised the copyright, whereas a non-infringing copy is not. We argue that space for fair uses of copyrighted works is built into the Copyright Act 1968 through these sections, because a fair use will not produce an infringing copy and so is not an act comprised in the copyright.

The International Three-Step Test. A Model Provision for EC Fair Use Legislation

The three-step test is central to the regulation of copyright limitations at the international level. Delineating the room for exemptions with abstract criteria, the three-step test is by far the most important and comprehensive basis for the introduction of national use privileges. It is an essential, flexible element in the international limitation infrastructure that allows national law makers to satisfy domestic social, cultural, and economic needs. Given the universal field of application that follows from the test’s open-ended wording, the provision creates much more breathing space than the more specific exceptions recognized in international copyright law. EC copyright legislation, however, fails to take advantage of the flexibility inherent in the three-step test. Instead of using the international provision as a means to open up the closed EC catalogue of permissible exceptions, offer sufficient breathing space for social, cultural, and economic needs, and enable EC copyright law to keep pace with the rapid development of the Internet, the Copyright Directive 2001/29/EC encourages the application of the three-step test to further restrict statutory exceptions that are often defined narrowly in national legislation anyway. In the current online environment, however, enhanced flexibility in the field of copyright limitations is indispensable. From a social and cultural perspective, the web 2.0 promotes and enhances freedom of expression and information with its advanced search engine services, interactive platforms, and various forms of user-generated content. From an economic perspective, it creates a parallel universe of traditional content providers relying on copyright protection, and emerging Internet industries whose further development depends on robust copyright limita- tions. In particular, the newcomers in the online market – social networking sites, video forums, and virtual worlds – promise a remarkable potential for economic growth that has already attracted the attention of the OECD. Against this background, the time is ripe to debate the introduction of an EC fair use doctrine on the basis of the three-step test. Otherwise, EC copyright law is likely to frustrate important opportunities for cultural, social, and economic development. To lay groundwork for the debate, the differences between the continental European and the Anglo-American approach to copyright limitations (section 1), and the specific merits of these two distinct approaches (section 2), will be discussed first. An analysis of current problems that have arisen under the present dysfunctional EC system (section 3) will then serve as a starting point for proposing an EC fair use doctrine based on the three-step test (section 4). Drawing conclusions, the international dimension of this fair use proposal will be considered (section 5).