On Fair Use

In TechDirt:   Good extended piece on recent hearings on copyright and fair use.  A concept often made use of in this blog.   " .... It is twenty years since the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its landmark decision on copyright law and the defence of fair use in the "Pretty Woman" case, Campbell v. Acuff Rose Music. Inspired by the jurisprudence of Justice Story and Justice Leval, Justice Souter developed a doctrine of transformative use. His Honour stressed that "the goal of copyright, to promote science and the arts, is generally furthered by the creation of transformative works." Justice Souter observed: "Such works thus lie at the heart of the fair use doctrine's guarantee of breathing space within the confines of copyright, and the more transformative the new work, the less will be the significance of other factors, like commercialism, that may weigh against a finding of fair use."  ... "