July 8, 2003

Looking Up

Humor came to rescue my yesterday when one of the support staff got her shirt sleeve caught in the manual feeder of the printer. She was attached to the printer for at least 15 minutes. We all tried to help. We eventually made a service call to get a professional to free her from captivity. I noticed that she was wearing a sleeveless shirt today...

Turns out the missing assignment was pulled from my desk. I have it back now. Phew... one less bad impression.

And, in the news, the 9th Circuit handed down Kelly V. Arriba Soft Corp. They found that a search engine that published thumbnails of a copyrighted work was not violating copyright, mainly because the the thumnails were a transformative use, and they couldn't be used for the original aesthetic, artistic, purpose of the work.

The two largest things I'm taking away from this case:

1. Why would an artist sue a search engine for linking to their images. Isn't that good for your art? More eyeballs?

2. Word of the day: militate. As in, "While wholesale copying does not preclude fair use per se, copying an entire work militates against a finding of fair use." [Worldwinde Church of God, F.3d at 1118]

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