Posted: 2009-12-26 20:10:18 UTC+01.

I previosly wrote about making copyright manageable and common. Certainly, this will at least give the creative user of content a chance to resolve any copyright issues. But, copyright is far from what the general public consider fair and reasonable.

'Fair use' is a concept that exist in American copyright law, in British copyright law this is know as 'fair dealing'. While other Countries' copyright laws may not mention fair use explicitly, most do include exceptions which allow citing and reference for critique and ridicule. The objective is to ensure that copyright will not come accross the public debate or freedom of expression.

The problem is that much private use has become public as people share their photos, video and music online. Private use of copyrighted work, derivative or other, is permitted, but once available to the public this may not fall within the terms of fair use and hence may violate the rights of the copyright holder, even if no economic benefit results and the use cause no losses to the copyright holder.

It is simply unreasonable to expect ordinary people to track down copyright owners and obtain license to use their work. And the copyright owners would be overwelmed by the task if people actually did it.

The solution is to clarify and expand the concept of 'fair use' and similar exclusions. Use of copyrighted work must be considered 'fair use' if the following conditions are satisifed:

1. The use of copyrighted material must not deprive the copyright owner of economic benefit, and
2. The use of copyrighted material must not produce an economic advantage of the creator of the derived work, that is:
   1. The derived work is distributed freely without any economic benefit to the creator, or
   2. The used material is not central to the derived work.

Adding the above limitations to copyright would allow people to be creative and share their work. Failing to implement these exclusions will monopolize the media, stiffle creativity and set free speach under preassure as a few big corporations control vast amounts of copyrighted material. Failure to liberate creativity will have dire consequences for content creators, culture and the society.