Comments on: Protecting copyright through new technologies must accomodate our constitutional rights to free speech.

By: Ruling Imagination: Law and Creativity » Blog Archive » Distasteful, insensitive, insulting, and totally unacceptable? Sure, but it’s PROTECTED EXPRESSION!

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 03:17:41 +0000

[...] it vitally important to protect the freedom of expression, which enjoys by far its widest scope under U.S. law? Well, here’s a little story about what can happen when people (not governments) decide they [...]

By: Ruling Imagination: Law and Creativity » Blog Archive » An Introduction to Copyright, Fair Use, and Appropriation Art, Part 1

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:30:48 +0000

[...] of one to express oneself (even by means of another’s creative product) must be balanced. That balance is what results in the doctrine of fair use. Tags: appropriation art, copyright and fair use, [...]

By: Ruling Imagination: Law and Creativity » Blog Archive » Preaching to the converted or trying to convince the unconvinced? They’re very different activities, and the former may well undermine the latter.

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:59:48 +0000

[...] Castle also dismisses as a “canard” without any suggestion that there are merits to it the argument that the fair use of copyrighted materials on which a lot of the value on blogs, hosting sites, and search engines is grounded in the constitutional right to free speech. The plain fact is that copyright is a limitation on free speech — without the rights accorded for a limited time and for limited purposes to copyrighted materials, their use would be constitutionally protected by the First Amendment. Thus, the rights accorded by copyright necessarily must be balanced against free speech rights, and this principle is one that is no “canard” — it is well- and long-established. [...]

By: Ruling Imagination: Law and Creativity » Blog Archive » Woody Allen settles for $5 million for commercial use of his image.

Mon, 18 May 2009 20:13:11 +0000

[...] protecting its citizens against the commercial exploitation of their own identities, and therefore the free speech rights in connection with commercial use of one’s identity are likely simila…. Since the image is unmistakeably Mr. Allen’s, since the use is as commercial as they come, [...]

By: Ruling Imagination: Law and Creativity » Blog Archive » Free Speech, Copyright, and Fair Use: We can express ourselves any way we want, even in ways that “steal” your own forms of expression, unless there’s a good reason to s

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 00:48:59 +0000

[...] But another, and very American reason U.S. law does not treat the products of creative expression the same ways it treats land holdings or the products of manufacturing is that the use of creative expression, authorized or not, is itself expression, and the freedom of expression is at the very core of what it means to be American. The fair use doctrine, which allows the use of copyrighted materials in certain circumstances withou… [...]