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My (non-lawyer) understanding is that fair use doesn't apply because this is a for-profit situations.

by Zev 16y ago

kenjackson 16y ago
That's not true. Wikipedia lists this under "Common Misunderstandings" of Fair Use: "If you're selling for profit, it's not fair use. While commercial copying for profit work may make it harder to qualify as fair use, it does not make it impossible. For instance, in the 2 Live Crew Oh, Pretty Woman case, it was ruled that commercial parody can be fair use." Companies like Kinko's also operate under Fair Use (when you're making a copy of a page from a book).
- Zev 16y ago
  Keeping an exact and full copy of my work without any modifications pretty much rules out the possibility of a parody. And TurnItIn isn't doing any sort of creative work with it (musical or otherwise). Unless you're saying my work is a parody of itself? In which case, its still my work. And they're still not doing any creative work with it. An algorithm can be creative, but applying it over and over is not.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Federal Appeals Court Judges, who know US law pretty well, disagree with your assessment of US law: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/headline-here.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/headline-her... And it was unanimous.
    - Zev 16y ago
      Like I said: Not a lawyer. First, TurnItIn required students to enter into a "binding agreement" when they uploaded papers to the site. Being forced to agree to the terms doesn't make them okay. It just means that I didn't want to fail and didn't have any other choice. Second, TurnItIn's use was "fair" according to the four factors found in US copyright law, with most weight being given to the "transformative" nature of what TurnItIn was doing with the papers. I wonder if any weight could be given to the argument that in order to be checked, the paper is implicitly given a second use, to verify plagiarism -- not that the checking process itself is transformative itself. And if that is true, would the only reason it is okay is due to the first reason? But, like I said, not a lawyer. And not about to find one to appeal this case.
      - kenjackson 16y ago
        You should read the actual ruling if you want details, but the two issues you mention are unrelated. Here's what the actual ruling said on the second issue: "Second, the court determined that iParadigms’ use of each of the plaintiffs’ written submissions qualified as a "fair use" under 17 U.S.C. § 107 and, therefore, did not constitute infringement. In particular, the court found that the use was transformative because its purpose was to prevent plagiarism by comparative use, and that iParadigms’ use of the student works did not impair the market value for high school term papers and other such works". And it goes into detail about how their use satisfies the standard pillars of fair use.

My (non-lawyer) understanding is that fair use doesn't apply because this is a for-profit situations.

by Zev 16y ago

My (non-lawyer) understanding is that fair use doesn't apply because this is a for-profit situations.

That's not true. Wikipedia lists this under "Common Misunderstandings" of Fair Use: "If you're selling for profit, it's not fair use. While commercial copying for profit work may make it harder to qualify as fair use, it does not make it impossible. For instance, in the 2 Live Crew Oh, Pretty Woman case, it was ruled that commercial parody can be fair use." Companies like Kinko's also operate under Fair Use (when you're making a copy of a page from a book).

Zev 16y ago
Keeping an exact and full copy of my work without any modifications pretty much rules out the possibility of a parody. And TurnItIn isn't doing any sort of creative work with it (musical or otherwise). Unless you're saying my work is a parody of itself? In which case, its still my work. And they're still not doing any creative work with it. An algorithm can be creative, but applying it over and over is not.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Federal Appeals Court Judges, who know US law pretty well, disagree with your assessment of US law: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/headline-here.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/headline-her... And it was unanimous.
  - Zev 16y ago
    Like I said: Not a lawyer. First, TurnItIn required students to enter into a "binding agreement" when they uploaded papers to the site. Being forced to agree to the terms doesn't make them okay. It just means that I didn't want to fail and didn't have any other choice. Second, TurnItIn's use was "fair" according to the four factors found in US copyright law, with most weight being given to the "transformative" nature of what TurnItIn was doing with the papers. I wonder if any weight could be given to the argument that in order to be checked, the paper is implicitly given a second use, to verify plagiarism -- not that the checking process itself is transformative itself. And if that is true, would the only reason it is okay is due to the first reason? But, like I said, not a lawyer. And not about to find one to appeal this case.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      You should read the actual ruling if you want details, but the two issues you mention are unrelated. Here's what the actual ruling said on the second issue: "Second, the court determined that iParadigms’ use of each of the plaintiffs’ written submissions qualified as a "fair use" under 17 U.S.C. § 107 and, therefore, did not constitute infringement. In particular, the court found that the use was transformative because its purpose was to prevent plagiarism by comparative use, and that iParadigms’ use of the student works did not impair the market value for high school term papers and other such works". And it goes into detail about how their use satisfies the standard pillars of fair use.