the first thing to understand when dealing with any matter of copy right laws is to understand the laws themselves.

The first half of this video has a basic explanation of copy right law and fair use.

As for fair use, portions of copyrighted material can be used for

  • Criticism, comment, news reporting
  • Teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use)
  • scholarship
  • or research.

When using items under fair use, it is important to remember:

  • The purpose/character of use
  • the nature of the work
  • the amount or substantiality
  • the effect of using

Let’s look at TV NEWS through this lense and see if it meets the fair use requirements:

  1. Is it a form of criticism, or used for comment/news reporting?The website and organization does not offer any criticism, provide any comments, and does not provide any news reporting. While the website provides news reports, it does not provide independent analysis nor independent reporting. Instead it is a collection of news reports created by other organizations.
  2. Is it used for teaching, scholarship, or other academic purposes? The website does not provide any critical analysis, scholarly conclusions, journals, etc. It also is a part of an organization that in and of itself is not a scholarly organization. Archive keeping is not explicitly an academic purpose, as archives can be kept for entertainment purposes as well.
  3. Is it a form of research? While it can be used as research, the TV NEWS site is not research in and of itself. It does not offer any new input nor analyze the contents of the news page.

Next we’ll consider the four factors when considering something for Fair Use:

  1. Purpose: The website’s purpose is not to make money or further any commercial interests or third party interests. It is to create an archive, presumably for educational purposes (but, remember, it itself is not educational nor does it provide academic value on its own standing) of tv news.
  2. Nature: The work deals with factual events in that the news reports shown have actually occurred. It does not pass judgement nor seek profit from showing these.
  3. Amount and Substantiality – the website shows all news reports from the last 20 years, thus it shows 100% of the material (except commercials, of course).
  4. Effect: This takes profits away from news organizations by creating a second source of news void of ad revenue for the respective news organization. This is particularly problematic if these news stories could otherwise be found at their home sits (CNN.com, for instance).

It should be plainly obvious that TV NEWS fails on almost every account. It is not used for criticism, comment, or news reporting. It is not explicitly for teaching, scholarship, or academic purposes. And finally it is not explicitly for research. It’s purpose is not explicit enough (only presumable). The nature of the work deals with factual events. It horrifically fails the substantiality of the work because it copies 100% of the work. The effect is that it hurts independent news organizations by stealing profits from them (Even if the site itself doesn’t profit from it).

Without obtaining the rights legally, TV NEWS fails.