I get that, but the general understanding of fair use is relatively homogeneous. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be able to take it down, just that an arrest for it when most people’s first guess would be that it’s legal seems harsh.
Not at all. The US conserves something of the enlightenment tradition of freely sharing information; vital for the advancement of science, technology, and culture. Free speech and free press means that you can say and print what you like (press at the time literally meant the printing press, not the media). Limitations in the form of copyrights or patents are only allowed where it helps those goals.
Continental European copyright preserves a monarchical, aristocratic tradition. It’s rooted in ideas of personal privilege and honor. For example, it’s illegal to deface an artwork even when you own it because it’s an attack on the honor of the artist. The term “royalties” comes from the fact that it was a privilege granted by royalty.
It’s revealing that Europe has basically the same patent system as the US. You can’t do without technology, even if you are an authoritarian ruler. What would your armies do? But copyright is just about culture, usually. You don’t want that to be a needless source of instability. You want a clique of cronies to be in charge of that. That’s what you see in Europe.
I get that, but the general understanding of fair use is relatively homogeneous.
No, not at all. Only the anglo american culture has that term. Greek/Roman influenced cultures think quite differently about copyright topics in general. African and Asian, I don’t know.
Yeah, an arrest for something that would be generally understood to be fair use is a lot.
I can see the case for “that’s not fair use”. I’m not necessarily convinced either way. But an arrest?
Fair use for tugging it
Looks like this is happening in Denmark, which has different laws than the US’s “fair use.”
I get that, but the general understanding of fair use is relatively homogeneous. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be able to take it down, just that an arrest for it when most people’s first guess would be that it’s legal seems harsh.
Not at all. The US conserves something of the enlightenment tradition of freely sharing information; vital for the advancement of science, technology, and culture. Free speech and free press means that you can say and print what you like (press at the time literally meant the printing press, not the media). Limitations in the form of copyrights or patents are only allowed where it helps those goals.
Continental European copyright preserves a monarchical, aristocratic tradition. It’s rooted in ideas of personal privilege and honor. For example, it’s illegal to deface an artwork even when you own it because it’s an attack on the honor of the artist. The term “royalties” comes from the fact that it was a privilege granted by royalty.
It’s revealing that Europe has basically the same patent system as the US. You can’t do without technology, even if you are an authoritarian ruler. What would your armies do? But copyright is just about culture, usually. You don’t want that to be a needless source of instability. You want a clique of cronies to be in charge of that. That’s what you see in Europe.
No, not at all. Only the anglo american culture has that term. Greek/Roman influenced cultures think quite differently about copyright topics in general. African and Asian, I don’t know.
Has Denmark ever arrested anyone before for copyright infringement? In most other places this is a civil, not a criminal thing.
That’s not true at all, there are criminal penalties on the books for this sort of thing in pretty much all western countries
You know that the FBI is not a Denmark thing right?
Checkmate!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark,_New_York
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark,_Iowa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark,_South_Carolina