Talk:Fair use

See also: Wikipedia:Fair use for discussions of what is or is not fair use on Wikipedia.

Rename to 'Fair Use Under American Copyright Law

this article does not present an international viewpoint

Is the term "fair use" used with a similar meaning outside the United States? We have another article, fair dealing, that deals with the equivalent concept in Commonwealth countries. -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:31, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and there's also Limitations and exceptions to copyright. -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I concur. Well stated. The anonymous user who said this article does not present an international viewpoint is not too bright; their statement is a non sequitur. Such a statement is nearly as stupid as saying the article on Italians is not presenting an international viewpoint because it does not have a section about Japanese people. The point is that there are some topics which by definition are localized to a particular area of the world, and fair use is one of them. --Coolcaesar (talk) 08:57, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Gameplay videos

I was wondering, if one was to make a gameplay video of something, like defeating a boss in Final Fantasy X (just using a game most people know off, it could be any other game for that matter), and put it on the Internet for people to see, would this be considered fair use or a copyright infringement? --Hecko 06:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

It is potentially a copyright infringement because the imagery comes entirely from the copyrighted game. However, it is possible that you could make a fair use justification. Again, fair use is, above all, a legal defense. - Jmabel | Talk 03:05, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Al-Qaida propaganda images

Surely a special case :) The photo of "al-Hukaymah" here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Hasan_Khalil_al-Hakim was extracted (I don't know by whom) from a propaganda video made by the international criminal organization known as al-Qaeda. It's a safe bet that al-Qaeda will not come forward to sue any of us. But seriously, is there some formal Wiki policy about such cases? Lots of other terrorists' faces are known only from such "enemy" sources. In any event the enemy made these images for free distribution, although not always public distribution, exactly. LDH 12:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Probably a question for Wikipedia talk:Copyrights/Can I use..., rather than the talk page of the encyclopedia article about fair use. - Jmabel | Talk 17:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Some "DICK HEAD LOSER" vandalism ?

Today (march 20 2007) I've noticed the text "DICK HEAD LOSER" in big font in the first section of the article "Fair use under United States law" between "The fact that a work is unpublished shall..." and "The four factors of analysis for fair use set forth above...". I've tried to edit the section, but the text appears nowhere in the source. I suspect the text has been added by other means. What can we do about that ? Fabricebaro 16:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I removed that a few minutes ago.[1] It doesn't appear on the article anymore for me, so it's probably your cache, which you can bypass with Ctrl+F5. It should be gone after you do that. —M_C_Y_1008 (^talk/_contribs) 16:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Scanned pages from books to support citations

Sorry if this is answered somewhere, but I can't find a clear Wiki policy regarding the use of scanned pages of books. For example, this sample page was scanned from a Sanskrit text that is copyrighted. [2] The page image was referenced in connection with a discussion of what the text says on an article talk page: Talk:Ashvamedha#Griffith_reprint_.28again....29 Is it ok to scan pages in this way? Can they be used in articles to support references? Buddhipriya 04:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

You probably meant to ask this at Wikipedia talk:Fair use, not here. This is the talk page of the article Fair use, not a place to discuss Wikipedia policies.

I am not a lawyer, but I would guess that scanning a single page of a copyrighted book to show it to another person as part of a scholarly discussion is probably fair use. I would probably have emailed it to the relevant individual rather than posting it to the web, but photocopying it is no different from quoting at length. But, again, you might bring this to Wikipedia talk:Fair use to get the comments of the people who tend to focus on this. - Jmabel | Talk 18:48, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply! I will post the question where you suggest. The image link would be on a talk page for an article, and so would potentially be seen by many people. This came up in a real talk page discussion which is why I am asking. Buddhipriya 18:54, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair use in performance

Does anyone know anything about fair use in performance (showing movies, singing happy birthday, etc)?--Jake13jake 14:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

A little. The line isn't sharp, but it's mostly a matter of public vs. private. That is, it's certainly fair use to sing the copyrighted version of "Happy Birthday" to your friend at home; it's certainly not fair use to sing it from the stage of a cabaret; it's an interesting question (I don't know if it's ever hit a court) whether it is OK for an employee of a busy restaurant to sing it to a customer. My guess would be that, technically, it's not, it's merely tolerated. - Jmabel | Talk 18:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

The 300 word rule?

The 300 word rule is listed under common misunderstandings, but the text seems to support the idea that 300 words is an acceptable amount of quoting, so long as it is properly sourced, to use without violating copyrights. Should this be restructured so that either the reason that it is listed under common misunderstandings is made clear or possibly moved to a new section that might be labeled 'correct understands'? Mathchem271828 21:02, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

It really depends on the work in question. Quoting 300 words of a 200,000-word book is probably OK, unless it's a particularly substantial paragraph (as detailed in the article), but quoting 300 words of a 300-word poem is much more likely to be an infringement. 199.126.1.82 (talk) 05:00, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Balzac infringement?

"On the other hand, one might well question whether Roland Barthes' S/Z clearly supersedes Honoré de Balzac's short story "Sarrasine" as a market replacement, since it reproduces the entirety of the latter, though only in short fragments followed by much critical explication by Barthes."

Seems to be not WP:NPOV at all. Balzac's works have not had copyright protection in centuries. Delete sentence? Gekritzl 01:36, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

It's been quite long enough since this was brought up, so I went ahead and deleted it. Aside from the fact that Sarrasine is not currently copyrighted, it's original research unless somebody can produce a source where a commentator of note describes S/Z as such. That's aside from the weasel words that lead it all off. --ChandlerH 19:38, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Book covers in Wikipedia articles on the Book and its Author

May we use copyrighted images of Book covers in Wiki articles about the Book or its Author? Yours truly, --Ludvikus 03:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Definitely a question for Wikipedia talk:Copyrights/Can I use... --Lquilter 21:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Analyses?

"...fair use analyses consider certain aspects of the work to be relevant..."

What's this supposed to mean? Analysis, analyzes, etc? 199.126.1.82 (talk) 05:00, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

It's correct as written. "Analyses" is the plural of "analysis". -- Coneslayer 20:49, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

How Does Fair Use Apply to Music and Perfomances?

If I were a restaurant owner with a liquor license, would it be considered fair to play music in the background? Assume the music is not being changed or reproduced in any way. Now, if I were that same restaurant owner and I had belly-dancers in on Friday nights, are they allowed to play whatever music they like to perform to? Assume that I am 1) not paying them and 2) not charging my customers extra for the show.

The issue has come up about performing to copyright material, and I’m assuming that most musical artists copyright their songs. The question seems to be about making a profit from the performance; it that is the issue, what sort of permission would needed to be able to perform to an artists music?

Rebeccared50 (talk) 15:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Piracy link

used to link to Piracy (disambiguation) I changed it to Copyright infringement. Seems much more relevant, if anyone disagrees can change it back I guess. 65.78.144.144 (talk) 16:45, 29 January 2008 (UTC)