Letter to Editor: Response to Florian Mueller's Release re: "Anti-IP"

Posted Aug 26, 2005 18:39 UTC (Fri) by jzbiciak (guest, #5246)
In reply to: Letter to Editor: Response to Florian Mueller's Release re: "Anti-IP" by giraffedata
Parent article: Letter to Editor: Response to Florian Mueller's Release re: "Anti-IP"

Uhm... The Fair Use doctrine is an integral aspect of copyright. It's an explicit limit on how far copyright goes. Copyright is an artificial right, and Fair Use defines one of its boundaries. An argument which rests on a foundational pillar of copyright could hardly be "against" that construct.

Your argument is roughly equivalent to saying "speed limits are against powerful cars." It's a non sequitur.

Letter to Editor: Response to Florian Mueller's Release re: "Anti-IP"

Posted Aug 26, 2005 20:50 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link] (1 responses)

I guess it's a fair position that fair use is an integral part of copyright, but I don't see it that way. Everything I see about fair use, including the way it is legislated in the Copyright Act, positions it as a separate limit on copyright. There's a balance of copyright vs fair use. Copyright laws that have the least fair use exception are called the strongest copyright laws.

Not that this intricate definitional issue is relevant -- the statement I disputed is that advocates of bnetd aren't against copyright because the Copyright Act has a fair use clause; not because copyright itself implies fair use. If the poster had left out the mention of the statute and simply said as you do that fair use is an integral part of the principle of copyright, I would not have responded.

Your argument is roughly equivalent to saying "speed limits are against powerful cars."

I don't see the analogy "bnetd advocates are against copyright" <-> "speed limits are against powerful cars." A speed limit analogy would be, "ambulance advocates are against speed limits." They are.

It's a non sequitur.

I think you must have some other logical fallacy in mind. Non sequitur is where you argue B is true because A is true, and A does not in fact imply B. E.g. "The dog is brown, so it is male."

Speed Limits

Posted Sep 1, 2005 22:08 UTC (Thu) by jimwelch (guest, #178) [Link]

While it seems off topic, This is an example of being careful in quoting the law, especially in 50+ states (+D.C., PR, Guam,...).

As one of our ambulance drivers learned the hard way, ambulance's are limited to 5 miles over the speed limit by OK law. He had a crash and got a speeding ticket. The legislators decided long ago, that too fast driving by over-enthusiastic driver was endagering the public more than the live saving of a quick arrival of an ambulance!

Letter to Editor: Response to Florian Mueller's Release re: "Anti-IP"

Posted Sep 1, 2005 22:20 UTC (Thu) by Differance (guest, #18916) [Link]

> Uhm... The Fair Use doctrine is an integral aspect
> of copyright. It's an explicit limit on how far
> copyright goes. Copyright is an artificial right,
> and Fair Use defines one of its boundaries. An
> argument which rests on a foundational pillar of
> copyright could hardly be "against" that construct.

It goes beyond that. Author's rights under copyright are "subject to" fair use, first sale, and a host of other principles articulated in the statute.

Florian's just applying wishful thinking.