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> "can you consume this work in lieu of the original?" Grab some 8yo, throw them in front of the RLM reviews, and tell them it's Star Wars... are they gonna wa

> "can you consume this work in lieu of the original?" Grab some 8yo, throw them in front of the RLM reviews, and tell them it's Star Wars... are they gonna watch it and be equally satisfied? Extensive reviews are just like in-extensive reviews... Knowing all the characters is a staple of movie reviews in all forms, as are plot synopses. Story import of character and scene does not factor in to whether it is review-able in any medium. These issues are are applicable to most written movie reviews, book reviews, and song reviews too. They are exempt from Copyright for the same reasons. Why would we want a culture where superficial critique is acceptable, but in-depth critique is rejected? You hit the nail on the head: "it is not the same experience". If it starts providing some of the same experience, via excessive clips or music, then they infringe. Too much of a song, clips with no purpose, etc. RLM is among the better cases for meaningful reviews.

jerf 8y ago
"Grab some 8yo, throw them in front of the RLM reviews, and tell them it's Star Wars... are they gonna watch it and be equally satisfied?" That is not the question the law asks. The question the law asks is the one I gave. It is naked and unashamedly commercial in nature. A more way of phrasing it might be, grab an 8yo who has not seen the movie in question, show them the review, maybe take a moment to wonder if that's necessarily a good idea for this specific review, and then ask them if they are still interested in seeing the movie. Or perhaps better, if we're talking 8, sit them in front of the movie and see if perhaps they wander away halfway through because they already know the ending. At the margin, the answer is likely to be that the review substantially reduces the need to consume the original content. That is, for a single case it's trivial to imagine anything you want happening. But if you imagine repeating that experiment thousands of times, is the desire to view going to go down? It's easy to hypothesize your kid saying "yes I still want to see it all the way through in fact I want it more than ever" but that's just an assertion moreso than an argument. It's a possible outcome, but I find it much easier to believe that at the margin, desire is reduced. In that case it would be very likely to fall afoul of current fair use law; even given that again I fully stipulate their superficial conformance to a number of the 4-part test for fair use in US judicial decisions they could still lose.

jerf 8y ago

"Grab some 8yo, throw them in front of the RLM reviews, and tell them it's Star Wars... are they gonna watch it and be equally satisfied?" That is not the question the law asks. The question the law asks is the one I gave. It is naked and unashamedly commercial in nature. A more way of phrasing it might be, grab an 8yo who has not seen the movie in question, show them the review, maybe take a moment to wonder if that's necessarily a good idea for this specific review, and then ask them if they are still interested in seeing the movie. Or perhaps better, if we're talking 8, sit them in front of the movie and see if perhaps they wander away halfway through because they already know the ending. At the margin, the answer is likely to be that the review substantially reduces the need to consume the original content. That is, for a single case it's trivial to imagine anything you want happening. But if you imagine repeating that experiment thousands of times, is the desire to view going to go down? It's easy to hypothesize your kid saying "yes I still want to see it all the way through in fact I want it more than ever" but that's just an assertion moreso than an argument. It's a possible outcome, but I find it much easier to believe that at the margin, desire is reduced. In that case it would be very likely to fall afoul of current fair use law; even given that again I fully stipulate their superficial conformance to a number of the 4-part test for fair use in US judicial decisions they could still lose.