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Celebrate Fair Use Week 2015

By on February 18, 2015   /   Book Lists  

‘Kiss me, Harry,’ Ginny begged.

Harry pushed her away from him with a fist made of self-determination and Bessemered steel. His jaw was as strong and as powerful as a quarry that employs 200 men. ‘How can I kiss you,’ he said, ‘when you lack the ability to celebrate yourself as the highest culmination of your own values?’

‘I don’t care about any of that,” Ginny said. “I just want to feel your lips on mine. Please.’

Harry shook his head, like a proud animal, or the stock market. ‘I could kiss your lips,’ he said, ‘but I cannot kiss your self-esteem.’

–Ayn Rand’s version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, as envisioned by Mallory Ortberg.

The doctrine of fair use touches upon several of the hats that I wear: as a creator of copywritten works, as a consumer of entertainment media, as a library patron, and in my work as a web designer who is frequently charged with finding, adapting, and licensing images for client sites.

As an attorney, I’ve had clients on both sides of cease and desist letters–one who was asked to take a book off the shelf because of superficial resemblance to another work, and another whose artwork was commercialized without permission, credit, or compensation.

As an author, I’ve written parodies of pop culture into my stories. I’ve also seen my own characters borrowed by others. It’s painful to see the “children of my mind” written as bad caricatures, and painful in a different way to see them written brilliantly in situations I wish I’d thought of myself.

As a forum participant, I’ve seen people who believe, mistakenly, that the doctrine of fair use allows them to take any creative expression from any source and use it however they choose.

In short, I’ve seen fair use, up close and personal, from a variety of angles, and it’s still just a big fuzzy blob of ambiguous, conflicting, and ever-changing precedent. If you’re confused by fair use, you’re in good company. And if you’re not confused, you’re delusional.

To bring much-needed attention to this topic, February 23rd through 27th of this year has been designated as Fair Use Week, as coordinated by the Association of Research Libraries.

You can follow @FairUseWeek and use #FairUseWeek2015 on Twitter. You can read the Fair Use Week blog on Tumblr. You can participate in any number of panels and events, including a free webcast on the topic.

But to really celebrate Fair Use Week to the fullest extent, I suggest finding some bit of intellectual property that you admire the heck out of and using it. Fairly. Respectfully. Harmlessly. Cleverly. And preferably to the enjoyment and enrichment of your audience.

My contribution to Fair Use Week is a work of Star Trek fanfiction on a website called Skrawl. The thing I like about this site is that once a story starts, it belongs fully to the community. Anyone can write a chapter that they propose as a continuation, and anyone can vote on which of the submitted chapters will become part of the final community-sourced story.

Or you can celebrate the week by taking a moment to recognize the fair uses of intellectual property that you already take advantage of every day.

  • When you find yourself humming a song off the radio, that’s fair use.
  • When you take a selfie with identifiable works of architecture in the background, that’s fair use.
  • When you DVR a TV show to watch at a later time, that’s fair use.
  • When you take notes in the margins of a book, that’s fair use.
  • When you discuss the events of Super Bowl XLIX without the express written consent of the NFL, that’s fair use.
  • When you photocopy your mom’s old recipe for sweet and sour meatballs, that’s fair use.
  • When you hit the retweet button, that’s fair use.
  • And when you use your computer to display the words of a blog entry about fair use, that’s fair use too.

Without this common sense exception carved out of copyright law, we’d likely be dodging C&D letters and subpoenas all day, every day. Thanks, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story!

The use of Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story and his 1841 four-factor fair use guidelines to illustrate fair use is an example of fair use.

This unauthorized adaptation of a Harvard Library Office of Scholarly Communication graphic of a Ralph Lieberman photograph of a William Wetmore Story sculpture of Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story and his 1841 four-factor fair use guidelines paired with an allusion to a World War II era US Army recruitment slogan is an unnecessarily complicated example of fair use.

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An Interview with author Wendy McClure

By on February 16, 2015   /   Author Interviews  

We’re pleased to host author Wendy McClure today on the Mixed-Up Files. Wendy is the author of the three Wanderville books, an historical fiction series about three children who dare to jump off a Kansas-bound orphan train at the turn of the century. After hearing rumors about the terrible lives that await them, Jack, Frances, and Harold leave the train behind and hide in the woods. There, they meet a mysterious boy who will transform their lives forever. Books 1 and 2 are already out, and book 3 publishes in June.

Q: Welcome to the Mixed-Up Files, Wendy! Tell us how you came up with the idea for the series.

A: When I was growing up, I always loved reading about kids on their own. And wendymcclureas an editor of children’s books, I think the idea of kids being independent and having their own world is just one of those essential things that you need for a great story. I started trying to figure out where that notion came from — some of it is just human nature, I guess, but history also is full of times where kids had to work, leave home, fend for themselves. Which led me to the orphan trains, which seemed full of potential for historical adventure.

Q: What were the orphan trains?

A: The orphan trains were one of the first large-scale social programs in the U.S. From the 1850s to 1929, various charities in New York, Boston, Chicago, and other big, mostly eastern cities sent groups of poor and homeless city children on trains out west to be placed in homes — or as it sometimes turned out, work situations. Many of the orphan train riders weren’t orphans at all, but were given 9781595147004Mup by their families; often they were encouraged to forget their old lives. There were both good and bad things about the orphan trains. Thousands of kids escaped urban poverty, but siblings were separated and families broken apart.

Q: You’re a big fan of The Boxcar Children series. Did that influence you as you were writing?

A: It did! I didn’t actually read the books when I was young, but I came to know them VERY well when I started editing the series (at Albert Whitman). It definitely made me think about the ways kids can build their own worlds with just a few objects and some imagination. The trick is getting readers to look at an old cup, or a suitcase, or a fallen tree, and see all the possibilities.

indexQ: Can you share a favorite quote from one of the books?

A: It’s when the kids are taken in by a family involved in the temperance movement, and the youngest kid, Harold, is taught some of their songs:

“They [the songs] were all about how cold water was better than liquor, but everyone knew that, Harold thought. He’d never tasted liquor, of course, but he knew it smelled exactly like shoes on fire. Couldn’t folks tell the difference between that stuff and cold water? Why did they need so many songs to explain?”

Q: What do you hope readers learn or take away from the books?

A: That a lot of things in history were good and bad at the same time. Oh, but that sounds heavy…I really want them to just have a great reading experience.

Q: As a middle grade author, what do you love best about writing for this audience?

A: The school visits! The kids are great — their enthusiasm is fantastic, and they ask great questions.

2Q: Describe the series in three words.

A: OUR OWN TOWN!

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Nothing! I’m enjoying having some time in the evenings right now.

Q: You’re also a children’s book editor at Albert Whitman, as you mentioned. Was it difficult or easy to be both a writer and editor?

A: It was hard in terms of having time and energy to write. But at the same time, knowing the editorial process can make writing easier — I have more perspective on my drafts, and I worry less about certain things (because I know it’s a copy editor’s or proofreader’s job to worry about them). Really, I’ve learned so much about both professions by spending time in the other!

Q: What’s in your to-read pile at the moment?

A: A lot of manuscripts! Also I just tracked down some out-of-print middle grade books I remember reading as a kid, like A Candle in Her Room by Ruth Arthur and What the Neighbours Did by Phillipa Pearce. Very British stuff, and I can’t wait to read.

Q: And finally, what do you like to do in your spare time, when you’re not writing or editing?

A: Read read read!

Thanks so much, Wendy, for joining us! Find Wendy on Twitter @Wendy_Mc.

Michele Weber Hurwitz is the author of The Summer I Saved the World…in 65 Days and Calli Be Gold. Find her at micheleweberhurwitz.com.

 

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