Full Disclosure: Re: when did piracy/theft become expression of freedom

[Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu]

On Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:22:23 PST, "Zach C." said:
> (Fair use being the main exception there, but fair use usually implies
> something distinctive being done to the work, too, as opposed to minor
> editing/shitty encoding. Feel free to correct!)
Two of the major areas of fair use  *are* "minor editing/shitty encoding":

1) "minor editing" -  The ability to take small chunks for analysis/commentary/reviews.  It's
a lot easier and more informative if you're talking about the chord changes
in a Beatles song to actually *include* snippets of the changes, or if you're
writing about how Halloweeen 37 sucks, being able to include the 5 suckiest
scenes so you can voice-over why the scene sucks... "And HERE we see the
scriptwriter abandon all pretense at believability..."

2) "shitty encoding" - At one time, it was legal to buy an album or a CD, and then
re-record it yourself onto other media.  I believe the term is "ripping". :)  And there
was even a Supreme Court decision that said it was perfectly OK.  Unfortunately,
the DMCA makes that a *lot* harder or even illegal - Skylarov got in trouble for
revealing that Adobe was using rot-13 to encrypte ebooks.  What was Skylarov
trying to do?  Feed an ebook to a text-to-speech so blind people could actually
use the ebook they had purchased - which everybody sane agrees is covered under
'fair use', but there isn't any such exemption in the anti-circumvention clause.

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