Monday, June 24, 2013

"Fan use" or fair use?

Torrentfreak has a story with a new coinage about which I am skeptical, to the extent that it seeks to deprecate fair use, though I am glad to see Warner Brothers (sort of) acknowledge that fair use exists in practice:
[David Kaplan, Chief of Anti-Piracy Operations at Warner Bros.] says that Warner Bros. and its parent company Time Warner are turning a blind eye to some forms of copyright infringement. This means, for example, that the company won’t clamp down on fan-art that offers no commercial threat.

“We give a wide berth to ‘fan use’ and permit fans to use and interact with our content in ways that might technically still constitute copyright infringement, but do not directly substitute for the full length feature, episode or game,” Kaplan notes.
[Also, that Wikipedia link might better have gone to Fanlore!]

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