Paul Sieminski, Anwalt von Automattic, das als das Unternehmen hinter Wordpress auch wordpress.com betreibt, schreibt auf Wired über die Bedeutung von fair use für das Internet und wie fair use zunehmend attackiert wird und was Internetunternehmen tun können:
Many internet companies enjoy the legal protections of the DMCA and the convenience of letting users be responsible for what they post. But this puts much of the burden of defending lawfully posted content on individual users. Users who post content to a company’s services are a constituency whose expression deserves to be protected. Until copyright laws change to provide some meaningful penalties for targeting fair use, internet companies need to be more active on copyright issues, serving as the first line of defense in protecting the fair uses of content that have helped to make their platforms so popular. Not to mention profitable, as fair use of content drives consumer demand for online information and services.
Fair use has also transformed the internet from a passive information library to an active, participatory, sharing web. People interact with information more meaningfully and passionately when they can transform it, review it, mash it up, and add their own individual perspectives to it — leading to a better internet for everyone (including copyright holders!). So let’s do what we can to make sure the fair-use doctrine that created this living and breathing entity is protected.
Für den Kontext: Twitter berichtet von einem jährlichen 76-prozentigen Anstieg von DMCA-Takedown-Notices.
In der letzten Ausgabe des neunetzcast habe ich mit Leonhard Dobusch ausführlich über die Bedeutung des fair use in den USA gesprochen. In Europa gibt es leider noch sehr viel engere Copyright-/Urheberrechtsschranken als in den USA. In Europa gibt es kein fair use.