Fair Use

Thursday Midday Links: Pubs Use POD for Backlist Titles

Thursday Midday Links: Pubs Use POD for Backlist Titles

First off, I have some personal but semi blog related news to share. I have been asked by Berkley to put together an erotica/erotic romance collection of shorts which will then be published in a flip book. The flip book has two covers: one on the front and one on the back. Each cover is [...]

Sunday News Roundup: Free Books from All Romance eBooks

Sunday News Roundup: Free Books from All Romance eBooks

I hope you are enjoying the holidays. We are taking a mini vacation this week (if you haven’t noticed the light schedule this past week) which means only one review a day and no opinions. Today we’ve got a link roundup and a review. We’ll be back to our regular schedule on January 2nd along [...]

Victoria Laurie Sends Blogger Threats from a Lawyer

Dear Ms. Laurie: I understand that you have had a lawyer send out a cease and desist and takedown letter to a romance blogger based on two things. First, you argue that the comments that the blogger excerpted from your own website (which you subsequently deleted but Google preserved for all time) are somehow unacceptable [...]

Fair Use Part 2: Fan Fiction, Rowling and Cassie Edwards

Fair Use Part 2: Fan Fiction, Rowling and Cassie Edwards

On the SBTB site, Laura Kinsale asked the question “I’m curious. What’s the difference between Cassie Edwards writing about ferrets and fan fiction published for profit?” Robin’s response was “the fact that fan fiction, by its very nature, has overt attribution.” My response was The difference, ethically (and in general), between fan fiction and plagiarism, [...]

The Proper Application of Fair Use

The Proper Application of Fair Use

moar funny pictures In tuth, in literature, in science and in art, there are, and can be, few, if any, things, which in an abstract sense, are strictly new and original throughout. Every book in literature, science and art, borrows, and must necessarily borrow, and use much which was well known and used before. Justice [...]

University of Michigan Weighs in on Fair Use, Copyright and Google Bookscanning

What might be one of the most important copyright decisions since Sony v. Universal Studios is the case against Google for scanning books. I’m guessing that Google is operating under the belief that the scanning of the books and then offering portions of it in digital format for searchers is transformative enough to escape copyright [...]