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The Copyright Act is not perfect. In fact, it's far from perfect. The Copyright Act has --
the terms are too long,
the exceptions are too narrow.
There are plenty of things that need to be changed about the Copyright Act.
There are plenty of things that need to be changed about the Copyright Act,
and people should work to make those changes.
Fair use, however, is such a wonderful doctrine because it gives
us a way forward in the meantime.
That is, it allows, flexibly,
for new uses that, you know, maybe it would be nice if we can get congress to
tell us, you know, "Use this, do it this way and it will always be legitimate".
tell us, you know, "Use this, do it this way and it will always be legitimate".
But what fair use does is it says:
"If you are making culturally important uses,
"and you walk through the factors and you do the analysis"
"you can go forward."
And so what's great about fair use is you don't have to wait around
for this, frankly, very difficult process of reform.
for this, frankly, very difficult process of reform.
You can make important uses now and we can't wait, right?
Library users need access to library collections. They need to go forward with
interesting new projects based on those uses
and we can't wait for congress to come together and have a sort of rare, rational moment
and make big huge important changes to the law before we do those things.
We've got to do them now
and that's actually what fair use is meant to accommodate. It's meant to be
a flexible doctrine that will allow important new uses, despite whatever other limitations there are in the Copyright Act.
a flexible doctrine that will allow important new uses, despite whatever other limitations there are in the Copyright Act.
a flexible doctrine that will allow important new uses, despite whatever other limitations there are in the Copyright Act.