Fair Use, Fairly Well Explained

[WSJ_law_blog]

Our father, who art in southern California but who art not a lawyer, often exhorts us to do more pieces in which we simply explain a legal concept in the news.

We always come away from those conversations convinced that he’s right, that we should do more pieces in which we try to break down and make interesting an otherwise opaque legal concept. But then we get all caught up in Judge Rakoff or Jeff Skilling or statements made by Justice Scalia, and we forget all about Dear Ol’ Dad’s request.

Well, dad, this one’s for you. And it comes not from your son, but from a law professor at Columbia named Tim Wu. Wu, writing in Slate, breaks down the copyright notion of fair use in light of the Shepard Fairey/Associated Press kerfuffle. And the results are pretty stunning.

We’re not going to excerpt any of the piece, not because we don’t have the right to (after reading Wu’s piece, it’s clear that we do), but that to try would simply do it an injustice, like trying to convey the brilliance of the Beatles’ “Golden Slumbers” by playing only Ringo’s little rat-a-tat drum lead-in to the chorus.

So that’s all. Dad and other LBers, click here and drink it all in. We’ll doubt you’ll regret it.