Legal Matters
Fair Use; what about it?
We are aware of the possibility that some materials we use on our website, could have been copyrighted, sometimes without our knowledge.
For this reason we supply a FAIR USE NOTICE.
This website - the blogs, videos, images, etc. published on it - may contain copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner(s).
We are making such material available in our efforts to advance the understanding of current and past events and developments in the world, and help our readers prepare for the future - the things that coming over the world.
We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this website, its blogs, videos, images, etc., is distributed without profit from sale or rental to those who have expressed an interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes, as well as their spiritual edification.
Most of the used images and videos were not created, nor are owned by us. Some of the material of the blogs are adaptions of material published by others.
If you, the owner(s), would want any of these materials removed from this website, please CONTACT the Editor-in-Chief DIRECTLY via contact@the-watchman.net before doing anything else.
We will respectfully remove it at your request.
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Background material from our research on this matter:
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https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/ (Dec 3, 2019) Headline and clipping of this article: Fair Use
Fair use is a copyright principle based on the belief that the public is entitled to freely use portions of copyrighted materials for purposes of commentary and criticism. For example, if you wish to criticize a novelist, you should have the freedom to quote a portion of the novelist’s work without asking permission. Absent this freedom, copyright owners could stifle any negative comments about their work.
Unfortunately, if the copyright owner disagrees with your fair use interpretation, the dispute may have to be resolved by a lawsuit or arbitration. If it’s not a fair use, then you are infringing upon the rights of the copyright owner and may be liable for damages.
The only guidance for fair use is provided by a set of factors outlined in copyright law. These factors are weighed in each case to determine whether a use qualifies as a fair use. For example, one important factor is whether your use will deprive the copyright owner of income. Unfortunately, weighing the fair use factors is often quite subjective. For this reason, the fair use road map can be tricky to navigate.
This chapter explains the various rules behind fair use principles. To help you get a feel for which uses courts consider to be fair uses and which ones they don’t, several examples of fair use lawsuits are provided at the end of this chapter.
The Murky Waters of International Copyright Law
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/murky-waters-international-copyright-law (Feb 25, 2016)
Headlines and some clippings of this article:
Protecting Fair Use from the Trans-Pacific Partnership
A clipping:
Fair use is the most robust framework to permit uses of copyrighted material without permission from the creator or rights-holders. The United States is particularly known for having a strong, court-tested fair use regime, enabling all kinds of uses and innovation to thrive on the Internet.
Even though it has been so critical in the U.S. however, fair use is not strictly integrated into international law—nor, for that matter, any of the trade agreements the U.S. itself has negotiated with other countries. Most relevantly, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement carries a framework for governments to enact exceptions and limitations in their laws. That could be enough to justify the introduction of fair use in all the participating countries, but it's far from a straightforward obligation unlike any of the pro-rights-holder restrictions that the agreement contains otherwise.
Expansion of Fair Use Around the World
The Three Step Test Explained in Simple Terms
The TPP's Threats to Fair Use
Conclusion
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement Headlines and some clippings of this article on Wikipedia: Copyright infringement
copyright is a type of intellectual property
Copyright infringement(colloquially referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright law without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to make derivative works. The copyright holder is typically the work's creator, or a publisher or other business to whom copyright has been assigned. Copyright holders routinely invoke legal and technological measures to prevent and penalize copyright infringement. Copyright infringement disputes are usually resolved through direct negotiation, a notice and take down process, or litigation in civil court. Egregious or large-scale commercial infringement, especially when it involves counterfeiting, is sometimes prosecuted via the criminal justice system. Shifting public expectations, advances in digital technology, and the increasing reach of the Internet have led to such widespread, anonymous infringement that copyright-dependent industries now focus less on pursuing individuals who seek and share copyright-protected content online, and more on expanding copyright law to recognize and penalize, as indirect infringers, the service providers and software distributors who are said to facilitate and encourage individual acts of infringement by others. Estimates of the actual economic impact of copyright infringement vary widely and depend on many factors. Nevertheless, copyright holders, industry representatives, and legislators have long characterized copyright infringement as piracy or theft – language which some U.S. courts now regard as pejorative or otherwise contentious.
Contents:
Terminology:
“Piracy” – The colloquially used word for “Copyright Infringement”.
“Theft” - Emphasizes the potential commercial harm of infringement to copyright holders.
“Free-booting” - The term "free-booting" has been used to describe the unauthorized copying of online media, particularly videos, onto websites such as Facebook, YouTube or Twitter.
Motivation:
Some of the motives for engaging in copyright infringement are Pricing, Testing and evaluation, Unavailability, Usefulness, Shopping experience, Anonymity, Freedom of Information, all of which are further described on this Wikipedia page.
Developing world; describes piracy in emerging economies and markets.
Motivations due to censorship; describes it as it appears in countries where the media is banned .
Existing and proposed laws:Describes responsibilities and penalties.
Civil law;
A clipping:
Copyright infringement in civil law is any violation of the exclusive rights of the owner. In U.S. law, those rights include reproduction, the preparation of derivative works, distributing copies by sale or rental, and public performance or display.
Criminal law:
Some clippings:
Punishment of copyright infringement varies case-by-case across countries. Convictions may include jail time and/or severe fines for each instance of copyright infringement.
Criminal copyright infringement requires that the infringer acted "for the purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain."
Non-commercial file sharing:
Legality of downloading
Legality of uploading
Relaxed penalties DMCA and anti-circumvention laws include those in software designed to filter websites
Online intermediary liability
Definition of intermediary
Litigation and legislation concerning intermediaries
Peer-to-peer issues
Limitations: Copyright law does not grant authors and publishers absolute control over the use of their work. Only certain types of works and kinds of uses are protected;[58] only unauthorized uses of protected works can be said to be infringing.
Non-infringing uses
Non-infringing types of works
Preventive measures:
Legal
Protected distribution
Economic impact of copyright infringement:
Motion picture industry estimates
Software industry estimates
Music industry estimates
Media industry estimates
Criticism of industry estimates
Economic impact of infringement in emerging markets
Pro-open culture organizations:
Anti-copyright infringement organizations:
See also:
References:
Further reading:
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In case you are interested in these matters, than visit the websites mentioned.