Google and Microsoft Help To Defend Fair Use

An anonymous reader writes "The Computer & Communications Industry Association filed a complaint this month with the FTC 'alleging that professional sports leagues, Hollywood studios, and book publishers were all using copyright notices that misrepresented the law'. That is, they were aggressively pursuing 'right' that they were not entitled to. Now a group, backed by companies like Oracle, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Sun, and Red Hat, has launched a web site called Defend Fair Use that shows they are serious about making the complaint stick. From the article: 'In contrast to copyright notices that take no account of fair use and claim control over "all accounts and descriptions" of a game, the CCIA offers a different copyright notice of its own. "We recognize that copyright law guarantees that you, as a member of the public, have certain legal rights," it says, "You may copy, distribute, prepare derivative works, reproduce, introduce into an electronic retrieval system, perform, and transmit portions of this publication provided that such use constitutes 'fair use' under copyright law, or is otherwise permitted by applicable law."'"

The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

[Spy der Mann]

This Microsoft + Google alliance reminds me of that episode of He-man, where He-man and Skeletor have to join forces to save Eternia from this interdimensional monster - or when the guys from Dungeons n Dragons have to help Venger defeat Tiamat.

This is getting sooo interesting! *grabs some popcorn and enjoys the show*

Re:History Repeats Itself ... In six hours?

[TaoPhoenix]

Didn't we decide this morning that Viacom has a shaky case for exactly this reason?

Copyright EVERYTHING and destroy it all!

[ThanatosMinor]

If everything were copyrighted (most things sort of implicitly are), and we upheld MLB's version of Fair Use, then lawyers' motions would be copyrighted and as such could not be discussed by other lawyers or judges. Nobody would be able to talk about anything that had been written down or produced in any way. One could even claim that all speech is a derivative work and we could only use words and letters that hadn't been used in the same combinations anyone has used in the last half century!

Nobody would be allowed to do anything because they would be sued by people who wouldn't be allowed to sue!

Now that I think about it, such inability to enforce anything would be like having no copyrights at all. One end of the spectrum is exactly the same as the other. Too bad circles are copyrighted.

Re:The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

[Elemenope]

You blew a geek fuse; I can smell the fried childhood from here.

Re:Google and Microsoft in it together?

[oatworm]

Dr. Peter Venkman: This thread is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, Google and Microsoft working together - mass hysteria.

That can't be true...

[mattgreen]

That explanation is REDICULOUS(sic). I have a far more reasonable one, so allow me to elaborate.

Everyone *KNOWS* that Microsoft enjoys being evil precisely because they are evil! Or, at least, that is what people around here have told me. I have a feeling the people in Redmond drive into work like everyone else, but once they get into work, they start smiling. When they finally start working, they are chuckling to themselves: "Haha, its time to SCREW OVER THE WORLD! I can't wait to subtly break everything we've made, and inconvenience hundreds of thousands of users!" Because evil has this amazing ability to attract other forms of evil, thus allowing it to compound faster than one would expect, evil alliances are formed with alarming regularity: "Hmm, its Thursday, we should find a KKK club to sponsor since its been rather quiet this week." Naturally, everyone drives cool cars around the campus. Bill Gates is known to be able to fly, teleport, and destroy someone with a single thought of the mind. But few actually get close enough to him to observe these things, unfortunately.

I am sorry that this information is so long in coming. But I am glad I decided to post it on a site that is a beacon of truth, logic, and unbiased opinions.