Read all about it: the counsel for the Media Bloggers Association is representing Michael D. Bates in response to the allegations of the Tulsa World that by linking to and briefly quoting from articles, Bates had violated copyright law. The Media Bloggers Association represents bloggers who are “actively blogging on the topic of news/political media.”
I’ve been waiting for two days, but I still haven’t heard ALA President-elect Michael Gorman explain his one-sentence response on the ALA Council list, “Perhaps I am missing something but I cannot see why unauthorized and unremunerated reproduction of whole copyrighted articles and editorials is ‘fair use.'” There was no reproduction of whole copyrighted articles and editorials; even Tulsa World (the only newspaper in Tulsa) admitted that they were objecting to Bates linking and quoting from their site.
Tulsa World was harassing this blogger, in a way that would be very bad precedent for fair use. Not a huge issue, but one that fair use advocates should watch carefully. Good luck, Mr. Bates, and thank you, MBA.
Posted on this day, other years:
- Between an ebook and a hard place - 2012
- Heading to Code4Lib, Prepping for Evergreen 2009 - 2009
- Think Good Thoughts For Feel-Good Librarian - 2007
- My Code4Lib Keynote - 2007
- Reviews Resumed - 2006
- The Art of the Personal Essay : An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present - 2006
- Steve Lawson's Batch of Feeds for Computers in Libraries - 2006
- Code4Lib Conference Notes Up - 2006
- Treadmill of Craft - 2006
- FRL's Library - 2006
Turkey ALA king
One of the more notable reactions to the Tulsa World’s legal threats against BatesLine came from Michael Gorman, the incoming president of the American Library Association (ALA). His response was not a defense of fair use and its role in public discour…