The Fair Use Doctrine

[Carol]

> Kemper now:
> That's wrong.  If she wins sites will remain up, future fans of
other works will write fanfic, create fan art, establish fan groups,
go to conventions, etc.  It is already established that Original
creators have defined how they are willing or unwilling to grant fans
indulgences.
> 
> Many upcoming writers (I imagine) would love to have fans of their
work starting anything to do with their original work.  Writers
(artists) want/need a fan base: to spread word, to increase sales, to
quit their day job.  This is why most writers allow for fan
indulgence.  Why piss off your fans?  They are a writer's pita and
hummus. 
>
Carol responds:

I'm confused. How could a win for JKR, who is claiming that the
"rearrangement" of her words and ideas is plagiarism (without, IMO, a
clear concept of Fair Use and the reasons for its existence) be a
victory for those who want to use her ideas (characters and settings)
in a way that is *already* unprotected by the Fair Use doctrine?

Fanfic has, so far as I can see, no real bearing on the case. She's
concerned at the moment with reference works which, she claims, have
too little analytical content (a misunderstanding of the concept of a
reference work, which is *supposed* to be factual).

The only problem I can see is that, if JKR loses, she may think that
she's been too generous with her fans and crack down on fanfic, but
fanfic isn't protected by fair use in any case. But if she wins, it's
a victory for her and WB, not for fans or scholars who may wish to
write about her books--or hold fan conventions, which she could argue
violate her copyright just like that castle in India a while back.

But a victory for Steve V. is a victory for fair use, and surely
that's what those of us who make fair use of her works virtually every
day by posting on HPfGu should hope for? Expanding the concept of fair
use to cover works like the Lexicon can only help, not hurt, writers
who want to write about other writers' works. And I'm not talking
about plagiarism but about reference works that make an author's work
more accessible.

*Restricting* fair use, in contrast, will make it more difficult for
scholars and teachers to use those works in ways that are now
protected but could be in danger from rulings that restrict the
quotation and paraphrase and summary of copyrighted works. And, in the
long run, that will hurt the authors themselves. It's hard to sell a
book if no one dares to review it for fear of being sued by the author.

Carol, who thinks that neither conventions nor fansites will be safe
if a *reference book* is declared a violation of copyright