Cerebralbore101 said:
Sorry I missed this. Too many replies coming in all at once. In that case fair use is so poorly defined that virtually any amount of copyright infringement can be successfully defended as "fair use" in a court of law. From your link: Although the courts have considered and ruled upon the fair use doctrine over and over again, no real definition of the concept has ever emerged. Indeed, since the doctrine is an equitable rule of reason, no generally applicable definition is possible, and each case raising the question must be decided on its own facts. Hey courts is the use of an API fair use? Courts: Yes. Wait I mean no. Wait I mean yes. Could you define fair use for us? Courts: Nope! We have no clue what it means. |
No problem! I know the feeling when you get a lot of replies, many of them against you. 
I don't think fair use is used to justify a lot of copyright infringements, so it doesn't seem to cause problems. I agree that its definition is vague, though, and should probably be better. It's a tough thing to define though, because it feels like you'd have to go into concrete cases where something is fair use to be able to define the term better. Naturally there's a ridiculous amount of such cases, including a lot of cases that are either very difficult or even impossible to foresee, so a more detailed definition could be even more problematic. To prevent misinterpretation of the spirit of the law, I suppose it might be useful to use more specific language about the current points without really making the law too rigid.
That said, the current situation is what it is, and everyone simply has to deal with it.
