Fair Use Moment on the Radio
Maggie
Yesterday morning, while listening to NPR’s Morning Edition in bed, I was brought to consciousness by a lovely little “fair use in action” moment. Steve Inskeep was interviewing the band Pink Martini. The lead singer, China Forbes, was talking about being influenced in her youth by TV themes songs from “The Jeffersons” and “Good Times.” Steve Inskeep asked her to sing one of the songs and she said, “well, I don’t think I can because we don’t have clearance — we’ll get sued, right?” I cringed as her question was met with silence by her bandmate, who didn’t know the answer. Luckily Steve Inskeep jumped in with “It’s a news program! You can sing anything you want if it’s under a minute. (**not sure he’s right about the under a minute thing — the law might be more permissive than that.) It’s called fair use!” And with that China Forbes started wailing “well, we’re movin’ on up, movin’ on up, to a delux apartment in the sky-y-y.” It was beautiful and in a 10-second exchange millions of NPR listeners had the power of fair use law demonstrated to them as they started their day.
Comments
The Center for Social Media’s Best Practices in Fair Use document was easy to understand and particularly useful. And it’s free!
Posted on May 16, 2007 4:48 PM by Jean Seok