The Eliot estate charged for anything more than "fair use", which often meant no more than five or six lines of the poetry.
Hold onto your hats, folks, as we're about to be inundated with more and more chatter about fair use, your rights, and whether or not Real Networks just committed the worst crime in history.
"We hope each of these exemptions enable more exciting fair uses that educate, entertain, improve the underlying technology, and keep us safer," the EFF wrote in a blog post.
More importantly, the "fair use" decision in this case sets a strong precedent in an industry where programs and apps are often as much constructed from various building blocks of code that already exist as they are from whole cloth.
He argues for shorter copyright terms, and for a more robust interpretation of fair use of relatively minor amounts of a copyrighted work.
Taking from a published work is more likely to constitute "fair use" than taking from an unpublished one.
For example, a broadcaster's gameplay is more likely to be protected "fair use" if accompanied by the broadcaster's running commentary.
"If the use employs only a small amount of copyrighted material, fair use is more likely".
In general, using a smaller portion of a large work is more likely to be considered fair use.
Copying from factual materials, as opposed to creative/expressive ones, is more likely to support a fair use defense.
Facts and information are thought to benefit society, so their reproduction is more likely to be considered fair use.
