David Giacalone edits a great blog, shlep: the Self-Help Law ExPress [2], out of the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society that deals primarily with lay-people taking responsibility for their own understanding of the law . He writes [3], "Our courts have become costly, complicated, lawyer-centered bureaucracies, rather than the accessible, client-centered dispute resolution centers they should be." This idea is at the heart of the Center's Fair Use project - documentary filmmakers take responsibility for understanding what is Fair Use within their field, articulate it, have it reviewed by a team of legal experts and then pass along their shared understanding between peers and to the next generation of makers. Go to Copyright & Fair Use [4] resources for more information on this project.
Imagine David's surprise when he attempts to alert a website owner who claims on their site that there are no Fair Uses for the information posted there, and the editor threatens to report him to the Attorney General for practicing law without a license. Intriguing article with links to many great Fair Use resources. Read the full post>> [5]
Links:
[1] https://archive.cmsimpact.org/blog/csm_admin
[2] http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/shlep/
[3] http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/shlep/about/
[4] http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/resources/fair_use/
[5] http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/shlep/2006/10/23/whaddayaknow-about-fair-use-and-copyright/
[6] http://twitter.com/intent/tweet