Jill/TxT linked to Eric Faden’s A Fair(y) Use Tale? which uses clips from a couple of dozen Disney movies to explain copyright and fair use. Taken together with the teaching resources at TeachingCopyright.org it provides an excellent resource on discussions of fair use and the public domain (naturally from a US perspective).
fair use
Rowlings v Harry Potter Lexicon
The Harry Potter Lexicon case has been decided in favor of JK Rowling. In the Sydney Morning Herald report on the case Rowling stated that:
“The (Lexicon) took an enormous amount of my work and added virtually no original commentary of its own. Now the court has ordered that it must not be published”…
“Many books have been published which offer original insights into the world of Harry Potter. The Lexicon just is not one of them.”
The problem was that the Harry Potter Lexicon failed to show fair use (more on this aspect).
(via The House of Commons)
Technollama has written a much better review of the whole affair so hop on your broom and wiz over and read it…. This is a hot issue online right now check out the article Fans and Copyright Issues on Plagiarism Today and JKR/WB vs. RDR Books Trial: Findings of Fact & Conclusions of Law (pt 1) and the trial transcripts at the Leaky Cauldron.