I also noticed that some judges used the
Seventh Commandment (or Eighth Commandment
in Protestant edition) to justify the punishment
on copyright infringers. The mention
of the commandment is just an expression
of judge’s feeling. It has no legal
ground in any of the copyright law or
even the Fifth Amendment.

They are plain wrong in quoting the Seventh
or Eighth Commandment because there is another
commandment that talks about copying. That
another commandment is the Second Commandment
in Protestant edition. It forbids copying
heavenly, earthly, or aquatic objects for
the purpose of bowing down to the images of
these objects. But, nothing in the Ten
Commandments says that one can’t make
images/copies of others’ works.

The Seventh or Eighth Commandment has been
misused and abused by authors and artists
to justify their selfish motivations, in
spite of the fact that they commit the same
sin (their works are built on older works).
Moreover, some people even go further in
saying that copying the public domain works
without paying royalty or copying ideas or
knowledge without giving attribution is called stealing.
I don’t know where they will stop but it is time
to give the Seventh or Eighth Commandment
rest and leave it alone to its original meaning,
than stretching the meaning to cover every action
that the authors, artists, and other people find
offensive.

Getting off the soapbox.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<[email protected]>

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions
in this comment in the public domain.

Grand Upright v. Warner begins:

‘”Thou shalt not steal.” has been an admonition followed since the dawn of civilization. Unfortunately, in the modern world of business this admonition is not always followed. Indeed, the defendants in this action for copyright infringement would have this court believe that stealing is rampant in the music business and, for that reason, their conduct here should be excused. The conduct of the defendants herein, however, violates not only the Seventh Commandment, but also the copyright laws of this country.’

The decision is, of course, entirely wrong on the law in a couple of respects: that a request for permission to use a portion of a work indicates that a work has a valid copyright and that any amount of copying means there has been copyright infringement. Not really a surprise, given the preliminary nature of the action.

The decision and some analysis is described at Columbia Law Library. I wrote a too-brief summary of the flaws (giving short shrift to the case itself, which needs coverage), at the Wikipedia article on the decision, concentrating there initially on making sure that people didn’t read too much into this one, in the light of preceding and subsequent decisions.

(If anyone wants to suggest a project for some law students, this is one of many decisions which the Wikipedia doesn’t cover well enough to fully educate normal people yet.)

Jardinero1: While the nature of this work is both commercial and educational, it is also political (re: part one of the 17 USC 107 exceptions). And as for the movie review/Fox review debate, think about how much content Ebert and Roeper use over a one-hour show. The copyright holder for that material is the respective studio, and probably totals 45 minutes of a 50-minute show. (See Stephen’s response).

-jdm

17 USC 106: “Subject to sections 107 through 121, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize”

17 USC 107 (that is, section 107 referenced above): “the fair use of a copyrighted work … is not an infringement of copyright”

I presume that you can see from this that a copyright holder is never granted a monopoly over fair use and that it is, therefore, impossible for it to be theft, because Fox News never owned that particular monopoly right.

You need to provide legal support for your
assertion that copyright infringement is
equivalent to taking of private property.
Is there court opinion that states so?

The problem with your perspective is that
you wholly ignored the First Amendment
that is largely responsible for the
restrictions on the copyright’s exclusive
rights. Allow me to quote several
sentences from Eldred v. Ashcroft:

     In addition to spurring the creation
     and publication of new expression,
     copyright law contains built-in First
     Amendment accommodations.

     Second, the “fair use” defense allows
     the public to use not only facts and
     ideas contained in a copyrighted work,
     but also expression itself in certain
     circumstances.

The problem with your thinking is that just
because there is a word “property” in the phrase
“intellectual property”, they automatically
mean the same. As I stated in other places,
there are different kinds of property in the
same way as there are different kinds of
elements in the periodic table of elements.
Also, there is a gulf of difference between
tangible and intangible things, a difference
that you are still blind to.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<[email protected]>

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions
in this comment in the public domain.

Why does it matter that it isn’t a movie review? Really, why? Why is it less valid a case of Fair Use than a movie review?

It can’t because of the commercial test, because Movie, Book, TV, Play, etc. reviews are by and large for commercial purposes. The fact that it is a review for commercial purposes doesn’t change the fact that it is a review or critique. Frankly, at $6.99 a pop one would be hard pressed to push the “commercial purposes” argument anyway.

The originality of the borrowed content isn’t an issue, either. Every review is a review of original material (unless the item being reviewed is a plagarism).

Of course it could “stand” without the use of the borrowed material, just as a movie review could. They could have described the events, the actions, the attitudes, the inflections, all without showing a second of Fox footage.

Would it be as effective? Absolutely not. Especially in this case, because without the presentation of the “original material” most of the audience would not be able to go and compare the reviewer’s opinion against the original. Unlike a movie, you can’t to back and see it days/months/years later at your leisure. For the most part, if you weren’t watching when it first aired, you won’t be seeing it again. Ever.

I saw you call it laugable. Sorry if it sounded like I was attacking you – I wasn’t. I was just using your thoughts as a sounding board for my responses. There are too many people who don’t think of it as laugable. Sad, really.