> In particular, quoting people's articles on Usenet is a very good example of > the Fair Use Doctrine at work -- but moving some material to a different > medium that the one in which it was previously published is restricted.
Are usenet and web pages different media?
Especially when you can find the message on a web page, even if it is generated on request?
If they are, would this imply that Google is infringing on the Fair Use Doctrine?
I see a distinction between private email messages and public means of communication, but web-mirrored usenet and web pages?
* ozan s yigit | even when one is sure of fair use, asking for permission seems to be a custom | in the publishing industry. when in doubt, it is best to get either | permission or real legal advice for the specific use, however informative web | and usenet may be on general points.
The reason we have the Fair Use Doctrine in the first place that some people do not want to see critical commentary on their works. Since society has a real strong benefit from rooting out dis- and misinformation, the only way to ensure that falsehoods are exposed is to let others comment on them. If you could be sued for quoting something from somebody and calling it crap, this would only benefit the bad guys, not society. Therefore, you need the Fair Use Doctrine when you are about to slaughter somebody's work. When you want to appraise them, you /will/ get permission from reasonable people, and those unreasonable ones who reject are the ones to lose by not getting appraisal, but even so, it is their call.
-- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.
* Stefan Schmiedl <s...@xss.de> | Are usenet and web pages different media?
Yes.
| Especially when you can find the message on a web page, even if it is | generated on request?
Yes.
| If they are, would this imply that Google is infringing on the Fair Use | Doctrine?
Google would lose a class action suit against them for infringing on the rights of the authors of messages it has stored and made available, if such a class action suit was ever filed. That it is not, is mostly due to the fact that people have not registered their copyrighted material and therefore would not get any "statutory damages" or attorney's fees covered even if the infringement suit was ruled in their favor. Since there is no demonstrable commercial benefit from this material in its original form, and hence no demonstrable loss in the Google form, which makes money off it in a sort of round-about way, the damages would have to be assessed on moral grounds instead of financial grounds. The likelihood that no more money would be awarded than the cost of going to trial is overwhelming, so no intellectual property lawyer would want to take the case, either. Google is therefore a case of getting away with it rather than a clear-cut case of doing something legal. However, Google does not edit the articles and does not engage in any other intellectual work on the contents, so if Google is off the hook for practical or theoretical reasons that still has no bearing on whether those who do make additional intellectual value out of published material, such as by selective compilation, would be similarly off the hook.
If somebody stored the messages in extenso and linked to them from another page, that would be far less infringing than using only pieces of them. This actually has rather serious ramifications for the ability to make the browser extract portions of an abstractly referenced object, which is all the rage in the stuff underlying the Semantic Web and related efforts. If you can reference-by-inclusion segments of another web object, you can effectively make up an entirely new setting for the referenced object, over which the original author has no control. Insofar as a complete object is referenced-by-separate-instance, it is fairly obvious that the original author remains in control. This, for instance, has already been played out in court when it comes to pointing browsers at newspaper articles in a way that replaced them with no or different advertising. Although such a service is certainly welcome at the personal level, if you tried to make a buck from removing advertising from websites, you would be in deep shit, to use a very technical legal term.
If, for instance, the search engines were to charge their users money for the service of locating web pages, it is not clear-cut which way payment should go between search engine and author of web pages. One could imagine paying for the referral service to begin with and then getting paid for each referral. If, for instance, a search engine that employed classification would require payment for the classification service, it could well charge the users for using such a classified Web as well, and then the publishers of the classification scheme want to be paid. The overarching principle is that creativity wants to be rewarded, and the infrastructure necessary to reward creativity without punishing use of it takes a lot of work and time to be ironed out. With ever declining profitability of web sites and much less money to be made by Internet advertising, we will see people try harder and harder to make money before they try something more profitable. This will be a period of much irrationality (and the increasing amount of spam is a clear sign of irrational behavior with diminishing returns) before we find ourself on the other side of decisions that have been made by the really big players lobbying Congress and WIPO with little or no "user" influence.
-- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.
On 21 Sep 2002 16:21:24 -0700, t...@apocalypse.OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Thomas
F. Burdick) wrote: >quasi <quasia...@yahoo.com> writes: >> For God's sake it was a page for the public.
>For the life of me I don't understand why you think that matters.
It does matter as it shows the intent.
>Yes, that means that most people will probably give their permissions, >but you still need to ask! It's not about lawers, it's about common >decency.
I know you need to ask!!! Havent I said that I *was* asking permission? I also accepted (refer:reply to Erik's mail) that my method was *wrong* and I will change it according to the norms which were pointed out to me. Your rather caustic reply was to *that* - the need for which is what I fail to see. Being on the usenet seems to have made you think that maybe I am just an email id. But I am not a that, or a bot. I can not, will not, take uncalled for and irrelevant rudeness. Criticism yes, rudeness no. Sorry, that is the way I am made.
>This is not an academic document, and you are using opt-out thinking. >Before you accuse me of calling you names, you'd be best to explain >exactly *how* this is anything other than the opt-out thinking that >gives us spam, pseudo-science, and plagarism.
You do not want to *see* my explanations. It was just a plain oversight on my part, my method being wrong but my intentions not. And I accepted it and thanked the one who pointed it out to me and promised to adhere to the norm in the future (all which I have hardly seen being done here). Others saw it. You don't want to.
I have not much idea about opt-out thinking, other than the obvious meaning. And I definitely think it has nothing to do with what I did. There maybe other reasons why I did what I did - but the fact is I said sorry and promised not to do it again. That completely atones for my earlier non-conformatory behavior which was at worst a error in judgment.
You have no reason to come *after* that and relate me to spam and accuse me of plagrism. My dictionary says "plagrise : Take without referencing from someone else's writing or speech; of intellectual property" And I quoted (dictionary - quote : A punctuation mark used to attribute the enclosed text to someone else).
Your opt-out theory may be good, but please note that it may not apply to everything. I sincerely don't know what you are talking about when you say "psudo-science". In my world all intellectuals are in the persuit of knowledge above all. These little matters matter not to them. They are my idols. I strive to be like them. And I hope I don't get red-tapish & materialistic.
The Utopian Public Domain License is what I believe in.
Let me see, if you have a heart big enough to accept *your* oversight/agressivness regarding this whole matter.
One thing you could do is to declare the arguments to be simple arrays -- a VECTOR can still be displaced to another array, for instance; you do /not/ use (declare (simple-vector ...)) for this, as simple-vectors are not specialized vectors. That would lead to
(defun point-to-point-distance (point-1 point-2) "Return a number which is the three-dimensional distance from point-1 to point-2" (declare (type (simple-array double-float (3)) point-1 point-2) (optimize (speed 3) (compilation-speed 0) (safety 0) (debug 0) (space 0))) (let ((dx (- (aref point-1 0) (aref point-2 0))) (dy (- (aref point-1 1) (aref point-2 1))) (dz (- (aref point-1 2) (aref point-2 2)))) (declare (type double-float dx dy dz)) ;;declaration needed? (sqrt (+ (* dx dx) (* dy dy) (* dz dz)))))
quasi <quasia...@yahoo.com> writes: > On 21 Sep 2002 16:21:24 -0700, t...@apocalypse.OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Thomas > F. Burdick) wrote:
> >quasi <quasia...@yahoo.com> writes: > >> For God's sake it was a page for the public.
> >For the life of me I don't understand why you think that matters.
> It does matter as it shows the intent.
So what? Good intent isn't permission. Someone could deny you permission for entirely mean-hearted reasons, but that doesn't give you the right to use their writing anyhow. In my days, I've maintained several FAQs, which most people would agree are a public good, but I still asked directly for permission. In fact, you yourself said that you were wrong not to ask directly for permission, so I really don't understand why you throw in this canard.
> >Yes, that means that most people will probably give their permissions, > >but you still need to ask! It's not about lawers, it's about common > >decency.
> I know you need to ask!!! Havent I said that I *was* asking > permission? I also accepted (refer:reply to Erik's mail) that my > method was *wrong* and I will change it according to the norms which > were pointed out to me.
Yes, you said you would in the future. And *that* is what I objected to. Doing the right thing in the future doesn't absolve you of the need to do it in the present.
> Your rather caustic reply was to *that* - the need for which is what > I fail to see. Being on the usenet seems to have made you think > that maybe I am just an email id. But I am not a that, or a bot. I > can not, will not, take uncalled for and irrelevant rudeness. > Criticism yes, rudeness no. Sorry, that is the way I am made.
I'll admit that my reply wasn't friendly, it was annoyed and hurried, but it wasn't particularly caustic. On the other hand, you responded with pages of angry ranting. Who's uncalled-for?
And, by the way, what's with the amateurish ad hominem attack, claiming I don't know you're a human? Nothing I've done or said implied that.
> >This is not an academic document, and you are using opt-out thinking. > >Before you accuse me of calling you names, you'd be best to explain > >exactly *how* this is anything other than the opt-out thinking that > >gives us spam, pseudo-science, and plagarism.
> You do not want to *see* my explanations. It was just a plain > oversight on my part, my method being wrong but my intentions not. > And I accepted it and thanked the one who pointed it out to me and > promised to adhere to the norm in the future (all which I have hardly > seen being done here). Others saw it. You don't want to.
*What* explanations? You explained how you didn't think you should have to ask, and then you changed your mind. Nonetheless, you still asked (and for this iteration are still asking) people to opt-out. You're taking silence as implicit permission, and that's bullshit.
> I have not much idea about opt-out thinking, other than the obvious > meaning. And I definitely think it has nothing to do with what I did. > There maybe other reasons why I did what I did - but the fact is I > said sorry and promised not to do it again. That completely atones > for my earlier non-conformatory behavior which was at worst a error in > judgment.
> You have no reason to come *after* that and relate me to spam and > accuse me of plagrism. My dictionary says "plagrise : Take without > referencing from someone else's writing or speech; of intellectual > property" And I quoted (dictionary - quote : A punctuation mark used > to attribute the enclosed text to someone else).
I said it's the same thinking that leads to these things.
> Your opt-out theory may be good, but please note that it may not > apply to everything.
And now you're claiming that I have some world-encompasing theory that I'm trying to apply to everything. A little intellectually dishonest, don't you think?
> I sincerely don't know what you are talking about when you say > "psudo-science".
I was trying (apparently unsuccessfully) to point out the common thread between much pseudo-science, spam, and plagarism. That is, the idea of implicit agreement in the absence of explicit disagreement. In the case of pseudo-science, this tends to be wingnuts who claim that they have "scientific consensus" because no one objected directly to them, or because they "addressed" all objections.
> In my world all intellectuals are in the persuit of knowledge above > all. These little matters matter not to them. They are my idols. > I strive to be like them. And I hope I don't get red-tapish & > materialistic.
> The Utopian Public Domain License is what I believe in.
Utopian, and using "materialistic" as a bad word. Hmm, maybe you're unable/unwilling to understand me because you're a utopian idealist, and not a materialist?
> Let me see, if you have a heart big enough to accept *your* > oversight/agressivness regarding this whole matter.
It's your personal problems that are responsible for you thinking that annoyed curtness is the same as aggressiveness. For someone who idolizes intellectuals, you have pretty thin skin. Most intellectuals I know don't always waste time making sure people don't take things personally -- they assume that most people assume they're being addressed at an intellectual level, not attacked personally. Maybe you should try this.
-- /|_ .-----------------------. ,' .\ / | No to Imperialist war | ,--' _,' | Wage class war! | / / `-----------------------' ( -. | | ) | (`-. '--.) `. )----'
>>>>> "NG" == Nils Goesche <car...@cartan.de> writes:
[...] NG> There is still the boxed call to SQRT; I have no idea how to NG> get rid of that, but the code should already be pretty fast, I NG> guess.
CMUCL inlines the call to sqrt when the code you posted is compiled. And I think the code gnereted is short enough that further inlining it at the place where it is called might be worthwhile. In that case the compiler will be able to better arrange arg passing/return so both the boxing and the error detection code in the assembly output (enclosed below) will disappear.
For fast distance calculations between longer Vectors of floats there might be a point in looking into MMX/SIMD facilities of the recent Intel/AMD processors. I don't know which CL implementations allow inline assembly of this sort as a feature that the user can use but for truly speed critical code it might be worthwhile to investigate.
CMU Common Lisp release x86-linux 3.1.1 18d+ 19 July 2002 build 4007, running on defter
Russell Wallace <r...@vorpalbunnyeircom.net> wrote: >[...] >Well, he is asking for permission, via the forum the quotes were >originally posted on :) I'm sure if one of the authors in question >says "No, I deny you permission" he'll delete that author's words from >the site.
That thinking is just utterly wrong. Forcing someone to act just to maintain her/his rights isn't right.
You don't have permission to use copyrighted work (except in the narrow confines of fair use) until explicitly given.
NOT: You have permission until someone contradicts.
Kind regards,
Hannah.
PS: Just for the sake of this discussion: I hereby assert copyright on all of my articles unless proven otherwise. And, while there's implicit permission for news server owners to redistribute them inside the Usenet news system, there's NO implicit permission to re-publish my articles in other ways. I probably won't deny permission to republish, if I'm properly asked, but until then, see above.
> However, Google does not edit the articles and does > not engage in any other intellectual work on the contents, so if Google is > off the hook for practical or theoretical reasons that still has no bearing > on whether those who do make additional intellectual value out of published > material, such as by selective compilation, would be similarly off the hook.
This line of reasoning makes more sense to me than the "different media" aspect.
> If somebody stored the messages in extenso and linked to them from another > page, that would be far less infringing than using only pieces of them. > This actually has rather serious ramifications for the ability to make the > browser extract portions of an abstractly referenced object, which is all > the rage in the stuff underlying the Semantic Web and related efforts. If > you can reference-by-inclusion segments of another web object, you can > effectively make up an entirely new setting for the referenced object, over > which the original author has no control. Insofar as a complete object is > referenced-by-separate-instance, it is fairly obvious that the original > author remains in control.
This makes me think of MSIE's "smart tags" or whatever it was called, where the *browser* would automatically insert hyperlinks on certain words. What has happened to this technology?
> If, for instance, the search engines were to charge their users money for > the service of locating web pages, it is not clear-cut which way payment > should go between search engine and author of web pages. One could imagine > paying for the referral service to begin with and then getting paid for each > referral. If, for instance, a search engine that employed classification > would require payment for the classification service, it could well charge > the users for using such a classified Web as well, and then the publishers > of the classification scheme want to be paid. The overarching principle is > that creativity wants to be rewarded, and the infrastructure necessary to > reward creativity without punishing use of it takes a lot of work and time > to be ironed out.
So the current situation is a kind of non-optimized "win-win" situation, because it "works" for all parts, but does not produce directly measurable income.
Let's assume that Google would charge end users for the classification, and be charged for the right to provide the information by the authors. Do you think that it would still work, or would it lead to the end of the service?
On 22 Sep 2002 10:13:38 -0700, t...@hurricane.OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Thomas
F. Burdick) wrote: >Yes, you said you would in the future. And *that* is what I objected >to. Doing the right thing in the future doesn't absolve you of the >need to do it in the present.
Yes is does not. I have asked them all.
>I'll admit that my reply wasn't friendly, it was annoyed and hurried, >but it wasn't particularly caustic. On the other hand, you responded >with pages of angry ranting. Who's uncalled-for?
Yes. Sorry.
>And, by the way, what's with the amateurish ad hominem attack, >claiming I don't know you're a human? Nothing I've done or said >implied that.
I was sleepy and hurried and angry. Sorry.
>*What* explanations? You explained how you didn't think you should >have to ask, and then you changed your mind. Nonetheless, you still >asked (and for this iteration are still asking) people to opt-out. >You're taking silence as implicit permission, and that's bullshit.
According to my consience, I asked though not explicitly. I did not think at that time it was such a /big/ deal. This I later corrected after being pointed out by folks here that it was indeed a /big/ deal. I did not try to run away from asking or anyting of that sort. You and me is not same. I did what /I/ thought correct. On being later pointed out that it was /not/ correct, I corrected it.
Forget it anyway. This is free space. You do what you feel you must.
>I said it's the same thinking that leads to these things.
Fine. I will hence forth not quote anyone from this forum directly or indirectly. I accepted and agreed to all you said. But I simply cannot tolerate to be called a plagrist or to be even remotely aluded as one after taking pains to give credit to those whose it was. So I am a fool. OK.
>And now you're claiming that I have some world-encompasing theory that >I'm trying to apply to everything. A little intellectually dishonest, >don't you think?
sheez. sorry.
>I was trying (apparently unsuccessfully) to point out the common >thread between much pseudo-science, spam, and plagarism. That is, the >idea of implicit agreement in the absence of explicit disagreement. >In the case of pseudo-science, this tends to be wingnuts who claim >that they have "scientific consensus" because no one objected directly >to them, or because they "addressed" all objections.
ummmm... OK. As I said, I did not know what you meant by psudeo-science, nor did I see the "thread". OK. I got it now. But I /had/ very meekly agreed to my mistake of not asking permission. I protested to what happened later. Anyway forget it.
>Utopian, and using "materialistic" as a bad word. Hmm, maybe you're >unable/unwilling to understand me because you're a utopian idealist, >and not a materialist?
I sincerely hope that Gad gives me the strength to be as un-materialistic as anyone humanly can be.
>It's your personal problems that are responsible for you thinking that >annoyed curtness is the same as aggressiveness. For someone who >idolizes intellectuals, you have pretty thin skin. Most intellectuals >I know don't always waste time making sure people don't take things >personally -- they assume that most people assume they're being >addressed at an intellectual level, not attacked personally. Maybe >you should try this.
* Stefan Schmiedl | So the current situation is a kind of non-optimized "win-win" situation,
Well, that would perhaps be your conclusion, but it does not follow from anything I wrote.
| Let's assume that Google would charge end users for the classification, and | be charged for the right to provide the information by the authors. Do you | think that it would still work, or would it lead to the end of the service?
The Internet will not become a money machine until the banking industry figures out how to transfer money for free so you can charge USD 0.005 (half a cent) for some simple service like, say, reading a newspaper article you have searched for. With today's payment system, the cost of the transfer of the funds completely dwarf the cost of the service paid for. Various ways to deal with "electronic cash" have failed (I attended the opening of the First Virtual Internet Bank, but it folded after losing money mainly due to a severe shortage of cooperation from the banking industry), and I think the biggest hurdle is that the banking industry has a negative incentive in letting transactions be cheap or free -- they are lending the money that people have effectively lent them out again to other people and only make money if they can have stable capitalization. If transfers were free, people would move money around all day to get better interest rates from wherever, and then the interest rates would drop and probably make borrowing much more expensive. This situation, however, is what acutely prevents the Internet from taking off as a network for paid services. (The other options are to let micropayments accumulate at each site and only to charge or credit credit cards when the amount surpassed certain thresholds on the one hand, which exposes the receiver of the funds to high risk, and prepayment of some small amount that is effectively always unavailable to the payer on the other hand, which exposes the payer of the money to high risk.)
-- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.
> The Fair Use Doctrine applies /because/ every published text is already > protected by copyright. There are lots of things copyright do not protect, > but you have to understand these issues before you burn yourself.
> In particular, quoting people's articles on Usenet is a very good example of > the Fair Use Doctrine at work -- but moving some material to a different > medium that the one in which it was previously published is restricted. > That is the gist of my argument. Get a book on copyright law and study it. > I suggest «The Illustrated Story of Copyright» by Edward Samuels as a good > starting point. Making mistakes in this area is extremely painful. Err on > the side of caution, but know what your rights, meaning specifically, what > no one can legally stop you from doing.
I respectfully disagree with this, at least with regards to US fair use doctrine. Perhaps my reasoning does not apply outside the US.
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
I maintain that quasi quoted the posts for non-commercial purposes (satisifies 1), the work quoted was a non-profit widely distributed usenet post (satisfies 2, as much as 2 can be pinned down), the quotes were mostly partial quotes of usenet articles (satisfies 3, though I don't know whether quasi's page has changed), and the quotes did not affect the market value of the copyrighted usenet posts (satisfies 4), as the authors had no reasonable expectation of remuneration.
Thus I would argue that quasi was very much on the safe side of US fair use law.
No condition above supports the claim that "moving some material to a different medium that the one in which it was previously published is restricted." - the fair use conditions make no mention of a medium.
* John Klein | (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of | the copyrighted work. : | No condition above supports the claim that "moving some material to a | different medium that the one in which it was previously published is | restricted." - the fair use conditions make no mention of a medium.
Several court decisions have affirmed that new media present different potential markets and that the author shall have first right to introduce the material to a new medium. I find this nearly self-evident.
-- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.
>> The Fair Use Doctrine applies /because/ every published text is already >> protected by copyright. There are lots of things copyright do not protect, >> but you have to understand these issues before you burn yourself.
>> In particular, quoting people's articles on Usenet is a very good example of >> the Fair Use Doctrine at work -- but moving some material to a different >> medium that the one in which it was previously published is restricted. >> That is the gist of my argument. Get a book on copyright law and study it. >> I suggest «The Illustrated Story of Copyright» by Edward Samuels as a good >> starting point. Making mistakes in this area is extremely painful. Err on >> the side of caution, but know what your rights, meaning specifically, what >> no one can legally stop you from doing.
> I respectfully disagree with this, at least with regards to US > fair use doctrine. Perhaps my reasoning does not apply outside the US.
> (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use > is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
> (2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
> (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to > the copyrighted work as a whole; and
here: copying the *whole* work *is* the fair use.
(if we discuss a book: of course copying *all* the book is normally an unfair use)
> (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of > the copyrighted work.
> I maintain that quasi quoted the posts for non-commercial purposes > (satisifies 1), the work quoted was a non-profit widely distributed > usenet post (satisfies 2, as much as 2 can be pinned down), the quotes > were mostly partial quotes of usenet articles (satisfies 3, though I > don't know whether quasi's page has changed), and the quotes did not > affect the market value of the copyrighted usenet posts (satisfies 4), > as the authors had no reasonable expectation of remuneration.
> Thus I would argue that quasi was very much on the safe side > of US fair use law.
based on the information you quoted:
i think: *very* *very* much.
he *used* the work (the usenet articles) *fair* for educational purposes.
> No condition above supports the claim that "moving some material to a different > medium that the one in which it was previously published is > restricted." - the fair use conditions make no mention of a medium.
quasi <quasia...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Fine. I will hence forth not quote anyone from this forum directly or > indirectly. I accepted and agreed to all you said. But I simply > cannot tolerate to be called a plagrist or to be even remotely aluded > as one after taking pains to give credit to those whose it was. So I > am a fool. OK.
Eh, don't worry. Naggum's rants are actually entertaining and enlightening... since he does at times play the fool who refuses to understand peoples' internal motivations, though I don't know where the hell "Thomas F. Burdick" gets off with comparing an unfortunate, honest mistake in the pursuit of pure education to willful deception.
You can't live life getting all the boring details right the first time, or pleasing everyone. Otherwise you won't get laid, and you'll start sounding like the aforementioned gentlemen.
In <3241760906190...@naggum.no> Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.no> write:
> Several court decisions have affirmed that new media present different > potential markets and that the author shall have first right to introduce > the material to a new medium. I find this nearly self-evident.
To me, it isn't quite self-evident, as far as fair use is concerned.
I have a passing familiarity with one case, `New York Times v Tasini', in which the US Supreme Court held that freelance authors own rights to their articles in electronic media archives, and that the original purchasers of the right to distribute on paper do not have an automatic right to redistribute electronically [1].
However, this appears to have more to do with the interpretation of pre-existing commercial distribution contracts than with the question of fair use quotation.
The use of the word `market' is crucial, I think, as is made clear in Section 4 of the fair use law. In Tasini v New York Times, complete articles were being sold electronically, there was an established market, and authors were being deprived of profits.
One important fair use consideration, under test 4, is whether there is a market for usenet articles in the new medium, and whether quasi's publication of usenet excerpts damages this market. As far as I can see, this is the only medium-dependent aspect of the four fair use tests.
Do you know of a case in which a Tasini-like cross-media doctrine was upheld pertaining to fair use, rather than pertaining to the commercial redistribution of complete works or substantial parts thereof?
A fair use case in which a 'market' was relevant was `The Los Angeles Times v Free Republic', in which a site that reposted entire newspaper articles was found in breach of copyright, because it adversely affected the newspapers' ability to sell archived copies, and because the articles were quoted at greater length than necessary for editorial commentary. The court decided that fair use test 1 (commercial use - FR had not yet received nonprofit status, and had ads and solicited donations - and the quotes were not 'transformative' and were not used to create a new work), test 3 (posting entire articles), and test 4 (loss of market, connected to the non-transformative nature of 1) argued against the defendants, tipping the balance 3 to 1 in favour of the papers. Interestingly, the factual (rather than creative) nature of the articles worked in favour of the defendants when test 2 was applied.
Several features were present in LAT v FR that are not present in the case of reposting of usenet articles. LAT v FR was a battle between two commercial entities, entire articles were posted, and there was a resulting loss of sales.
----
[1] further note on Tasini -- it was decided on what appear to be very narrow legal grounds. SCOTUS' decision was based on a copyright act provision (S 201(c)) dealing with the publication of collective works - the purchaser of a work for inclusion into a collective work purchases only the right to publish in that collective work, unless otherwise specified in the contract. An electronic database or archive was held to reproduce the articles separately, and not as part of the original collective.
