Tuesday, May 23, 2006

At Least The Litigators Will Be Grateful (UPDATED)

The May Entertainment Law Reporter has the following take on the Bill Graham Archives fair use decision:

"On the whole, this opinion doesn’t uniformly benefit or harm the entire entertainment industry. Instead, it invites litigation (instead of licensing) on a case-by-case basis. . . . The difficulty with the 'fair use' doctrine – and especially this opinion’s expansive notion of 'transformative use' – is that determining which uses actually are 'fair' requires litigation that almost always will be more expensive than a license would have been."

I had a similar reaction here (and here).

UPDATE: Professor Lessig thinks the decision is "fantastic."