problem is articulating a reason why. An annotated version of half the book probably isn’t going to displace sales of the whole work. After all, people still have to buy the first two volumes to understand the third. And only half the third has been published. Also, heavy annotations mean that that the work has been transformed from Tolkien’s purpose. Maybe Christopher Tolkien should sue the person who tries, then we would all and find out. Balancing Factors vs Bright Line Rules There’s a tendency to want bright line rules in copyright infringement cases. For example, a court might like a rule that says you can’t copy more than 10% of a literary work that’s more than 1,000 words in length. This gives people a clear idea of how much they can copy, and the court’s decision is an easy one. The problem with this rule is that it might be really useful to someone to copy 11% of a work. It feels really arbitrary. It’s easy to imagine someone saying that copying 101 words out of a 1,000 word short story isn’t that different from copying 100 words. Why does one word make a difference. That sounds unfair. Of course, the rule is useful to copiers as well. Just count-up how much you’re copying and make sure it’s under the threshold. Most reviews of literary works aren’t likely to copy more than 10% of a work they review anyways. But for content creators, this rule can be a real problem. If someone quotes 10% of a lengthy memoir, they could potentially copy the only part of the work that’s worth anything to anyone. What if you could legally copy the part of Bill Clinton’s memoir talking about Monica Lewinsky? For a publisher, that’s a big part of the reason why a lot of people would buy the book. More people are interested in presidential sex than in terrible childhoods. So content creators resist such a rule because of its effects on potential markets. Notice that
problem is articulating a reason why. An annotated version of half the book probably isn’t going to displace sales of the whole work. After all, people still have to buy the first two volumes to understand the third. And only half the third has been published. Also, heavy annotations mean that that the work has been transformed from Tolkien’s purpose. Maybe Christopher Tolkien should sue the person who tries, then we would all and find out. Balancing Factors vs Bright Line Rules There’s a tendency to want bright line rules in copyright infringement cases. For example, a court might like a rule that says you can’t copy more than 10% of a literary work that’s more than 1,000 words in length. This gives people a clear idea of how much they can copy, and the court’s decision is an easy one. The problem with this rule is that it might be really useful to someone to copy 11% of a work. It feels really arbitrary. It’s easy to imagine someone saying that copying 101 words out of a 1,000 word short story isn’t that different from copying 100 words. Why does one word make a difference. That sounds unfair. Of course, the rule is useful to copiers as well. Just count-up how much you’re copying and make sure it’s under the threshold. Most reviews of literary works aren’t likely to copy more than 10% of a work they review anyways. But for content creators, this rule can be a real problem. If someone quotes 10% of a lengthy memoir, they could potentially copy the only part of the work that’s worth anything to anyone. What if you could legally copy the part of Bill Clinton’s memoir talking about Monica Lewinsky? For a publisher, that’s a big part of the reason why a lot of people would buy the book. More people are interested in presidential sex than in terrible childhoods. So content creators resist such a rule because of its effects on potential markets. Notice that
Nicholson%20Fair%20Use.docx