Copyright, the Web and Access

Thanks to Larry Lessig for pointing out a great report from the Brennan Center on how web-based collaboration is being challenged by the misapplication of old print approaches to copyright. See Brennan Center on Fair Use.
As the Report’s Press Release states:

Misinterpretation of ‘Fair Use’ Stifles Free Expression
Artists, Writers and Bloggers Targeted for Using Copyrighted Material
New York, NY — Today, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law released a new report, “Will Fair Use Survive?” which documents the increasing number of artists, writers, bloggers and others who are unjustly targeted for using copyrighted or trademarked material without permission.
Fair use allows anyone to publish, copy, distribute or reproduce part or all of copyrighted work without permission for the purpose of commentary, news reporting, criticism, and scholarship. There are similar free expression safeguards in trademark law.
Marjorie Heins, co-author of the report and founder of the Free Expression Policy Project at the Brennan Center explained: “Fair use is an essential part of our political and cultural life. Requiring permission every time someone copies a document, or uses a quote or image to produce a new work, cripples our ability to share ideas.”
“Although copyright issues are in the news every day – from battles over online music-sharing to plans for the Google print library – threats to fair use actually present a greater challenge to creativity and democratic discussion,” she added

While the American fair use doctrine is quite distinctly different from the fair dealing concept in Canadian law: CIPO’s A Guide to Copyrights and Robic’s useful guide to Fair Dealing: Criticism, Review and Newspaper Summaries.
There is a need for a wholesale rethinking of copyright, and its too large for the courts, though see the CCH case “SELECTED” BIBLIOGRAPHY/WEBLIOGRAPHY and the Department of Canadian Heritage’s site.
The bigger picture is discussed at Free speech under Net attack, study says and by blogger Donna Wentworth in Copyright Mythbusters: Believe It or Not, Fair Use Exists.