Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Speaking of Kittredge...

[Jon Wallace <jonw@psubs.org>]

Well, no, that's a misinterpretation of fair use in my opinion.  There's 
no encumbrance on a copyright owner to make their works available to 
anyone.  Fair use is a concept, not a distinct set of rules, and 
therefore open to interpretation by a court.  In general, fair use is 
accepted as meaning utilization a minor segment of a larger piece of 
work.  However it's up to a court to ultimately decide how much use of a 
protected work is "too much" and violates reasonable "fair use".  
Busby's Manned Submersibles is in the public domain, but using that as 
an example if it weren't, you could likely quote a paragraph of 
technical information from it under fair use because in a 700+ page book 
the use of one paragraph does not significantly compromise the totality 
of the work (the book).

US copyright laws do a good job of protecting the owners of works.  A 
couple of years ago I brought action against a well known 60's music 
artist who had been using a photo of mine as the cover of an album 
without my permission since 1992.  In 1985 I had sent the photo to the 
artist and asked them to autograph and return it to me.  Shortly 
thereafter, I received a call from the artist's representative asking if 
they could use it for marketing purposes and I replied not unless they 
paid me for the photo.  I never heard back from them, never received 
compensation for the photo, and never received the photo back.  
Twenty-five years later, I happened to check the artists web site and 
found that they had used my photo as an album cover since 1992.  I hired 
a copyright lawyer and was successful in forcing them to stop using the 
photo and having them remove the image from all existing albums they had 
in stock.

US law is pretty clear.  If it's not yours, you can't use it without 
permission.

Jon


On 5/5/2012 12:44 PM, Marc de Piolenc wrote:
> Interesting. My friend firmly believed he was buying from The Source, 
> and he's not stupid. Wonder where he actually bought it.
>
> If the copyright owner doesn't make the plans available, then the 
> field is pretty much open under Fair Use. It would be nice, though, if 
> whoever it was provided a complete, clean set.
>
> Marc




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