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Lecturer in Law and Executive Director of the Fair Use Project Anthony Falzone participated in an email roundtable discussion hosted by the PBS Mediashift blog about a new Code of Best Practices in Fair Use For Online Video. Falzone wrote:
...Nobody seems to acknowledge the terrific burden the copyright system places on ordinary people. We have sophisticated (and relatively cheap) tools to create and share video content on a massive scale, but almost no guidance on what we’re allowed to do with copyrighted content in that realm. Fair use largely defines those rights, but it’s not an easy tool to use for anyone but a legal specialist. So most people are left to guess whether and how it might help them.
At a minimum, I expect the Code will help people across the spectrum figure out whether their creations are likely to fall on one side of the fair use line or the other, both in deciding whether and how to share it, and whether to defend it if challenged. Beyond that, I hope the Code will help platform providers and content owners — the YouTubes and Viacoms of the world — reach a common understanding of what’s fair use and what’s not so they can go beyond the generalities Peter mentioned.