On 10/24/2010 09:31 PM, marc garrett wrote:
>
>   >  I have many questions about free culture. Is it simply a rebranding of
>   >  "freedom of speech"? Is the American constitutional legal idea of
>   >  "protected versus commercial speech" a useful one? What is the economic
>   >  impact on authors of translations and artists of prints of high quality
>   >  website images under free licences? How do we get to and the economic
>   >  organization that I agree with every critic of Free Culture is still
>   >  sorely lacking but *without* trying to break it? Is copyleft an
>   >  over-reaction to the need for Fair Use?
>
> Most of these questions you put forward seem to need actual examples to
> give them context, so that we can compare ideas, where defintions or
> suggestions can be used, explored practically.

Yes I was more listing them to demonstrate that I do have them. I do 
enjoy discussing this stuff but I don't want to bore the list. :-)

>   >Is copyleft an over-reaction to the need for Fair Use?
>
> I may be wrong here, but I thought Fair Use was only recognised legally
> within the United Sates. Which is probably another reason why copyleft
> has been more widely taken on, because it is less bound by a single
> nation's state-law, and due to the distributable advantage and use of
> the Internet.

You are absolutely right that Fair Use is now mostly an American thing, 
although a couple of other countries do have it. The Gowers Report 
recommended some fair use-like exceptions to be added to the UK's 
anaemic "Fair Dealing" provisions but the government ignored that. :-(

Fair Use, particularly "Transformative Fair Use" (which Negativland have 
spoken eloquently in defence of), is *an* ideal for freedom of 
expression, even if we need alternative licences outside of the US to 
get it. Copyleft licences, like the GPL and BY-SA, go further than 
Transformative Fair Use but remove most of the uncertainty that can see 
Fair Use often lead to the courts.

I personally prefer copyleft but enough people don't that I'm asking 
whether I am right to, and whether Fair Use (however achieved) would be 
enough. :-)

- Rob.
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