Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review. It provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test. It is based on free speech rights provided by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The term "fair use" is unique to the United States, and since lately to Israel as well; a similar principle, fair dealing, exists in some other common law jurisdictions. Civil law jurisdictions have other limitations and exceptions to copyright. United States trademark law also incorporates a "fair use" defense, which also stems from the First Amendment of the U.S. constitution. With Israel adopting fair use and Japan considering it we could be active in trying to expand its reach domestically and globally.

If you want to own information, keep it to yourself (in your private domain) > - you can't own the copies you give to others or allow others to make. Of > course, you could lobby the legislature to enact such privileges, but > privileges aren't rights.

the point with "free data" is precisely that corporations shouldn't be able to lock data away that relates to you in some way. So people shouldn't be able to own data, even corporate persons. Privacy is another matter. Do add your comments to the autonomo.us wiki, your critique of Affero and of the rest of the declaration is very insightful.

FCC chief says Comcast violated Internet rules By JOHN DUNBAR, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 4 minutes ago WASHINGTON - The head of the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday he will recommend that the nation's largest cable company be punished for violating agency principles that guarantee customers open access to the Internet. ADVERTISEMENT The potentially precedent-setting move stems from a complaint against Comcast Corp. that the company had blocked Internet traffic among users of a certain type of "file sharing" software that allows them to exchange large amounts of data. "The commission has adopted a set of principles that protects consumers access to the Internet," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told The Associated Press late Thursday. "We found that Comcast's actions in this instance violated our principles." Martin said Comcast has "arbitrarily" blocked Internet access, regardless of the level of traffic, and failed to disclose to consumers that it was doing so. Company spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice on Thursday denied that Comcast blocks Internet content or services and that the "carefully limited measures that Comcast takes to manage traffic on its broadband network are a reasonable part" of the company's strategy to ensure all customers receive quality service. Martin will circulate an order recommending enforcement action against the company on Friday among his fellow commissioners, who will vote on the measure at an open meeting on Aug. 1. The action was in response to a complaint filed by Free Press and Public Knowledge, nonprofit groups that advocate for "network neutrality," the idea that all Internet content should be treated equally. Martin's order would require Comcast to stop its practice of blocking; provide details to the commission on the extent and manner in which the practice has been used; and to disclose to consumers details on future plans for managing its network going forward.

News that Sony BMG will soon become the last of the big four record labels to drop DRM technology should put to rest the idea that attacking individual consumers for downloading music is a viable survival strategy. That's good news for consumers -- and for emerging artists who like to create songs that sample older tracks. Whether it will help save the music industry in anything resembling its current form is a tougher question. With record sales down another 15% in 2007 to half a billion units, the music giants need an answer to it, and fast. Combined with a report from Beet.tv that NBC will soon begin sharing embed codes so its video clips can live outside msnbc.com, the Sony BMG decision helps mark the end of the entertainment industry's denial stage. Having missed the first wave of digital music technology while riding in limos or appearing in court, Sony BMG, EMI, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group honchos also missed the chance to expand their market using the Web. It took Steve Jobs and iTunes to convince them that you can sell music over the Web if you make it easy enough. But now that the free- or nearly-free music genie is out of the bottle, finding a way to sell Internet music AT A PROFIT may prove a Herculean task.

i am your alter ego

Dang! ... missed it! Cheers CC!

Yeah, I can hardly fuckin wait.