Book Lists

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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Anti-Valentine’s Day and Revenge! A perfect Middle-Grade Combo!

By on February 13, 2015   /   Book Lists  

 

Hello, Mixed-Up Filers and welcome to my February post!

Before I begin, I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Valentine’s Day for tomorrow. As you know, Valentine’s Day is for being happy and spending time with the one you love. Unless, of course, you’re alone, in which case Valentine’s Day becomes just the absolute worst. But, that’s neither here nor there right now. What is here, is this column. And that’s what this is all about.

For the two of you who regularly read my posts, you know what I’m talking about. You know, that I always have a very difficult time deciding what to write about. But, I’m proud to report, not this time. Nope…this time I knew. This time would be easy. It was a no-brainer. My post was to come out February 13th and Valentine’s Day was February 14th. Could it be spelled out any simpler for me? I would write about books with a Valentine’s Day theme!

Oh, how fantastic it would be! Both my readers would be excited and feel all the emotion that only books associated with a holiday of love could bring. And that’s where my mistake was, in assuming anything could be that easy. And you know what happens when you assume things? Well, I can’t tell you the answer to that, it is a site for Middle Graders after all, but needless to say, it isn’t good.

Because in life, sometimes things happen and all of our best laid plans don’t always go as they should and this was one of those times. You see, earlier this week as I did my daily perusal of our wonderful, Mixed-Up Files site, I saw that my esteemed colleague, Michele Weber Hurwitz, did her post on Valentine’s Day books. I guess I really need to start attending the Mixed-Up Files meetings. So, instead of my meticulously researched list of Valentine’s Day books, I was left scrambling. I was panicky, deflated and bitter. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I wasn’t alone. On Valentine’s Day, if you’re not happy and gooey in love, you were bitter.

wilted roses

And bitterness can either lead to depression, or to feelings of revenge. I’m not into letting depression take over, so here, in honor of Valentine’s Day, are my top Middle-Grade books about revenge!

 

In no particular order, here they are:

hook

 Hook’s Revenge

by Heidi Shulz- This is a fun book about the daughter of Captain Hook, who must avenge him by defeating the Neverland Crocodile. Along the way, he must deal with leading inept pirates, avoiding cannibals,   the lost boys and that pesky Peter Pan.

Revenge of the Flower Girls by Jennifer Ziegler-

revenge flower girls

This book is about The Brewster triplets — Dawn, Darby, and Delaney, who prefer the guy their older sister used to date instead of the one she is set to marry. So, they take it upon themselves to stop the wedding and restore things to how they’re “supposed to be”.

Revenge of the Bully (How to Beat the Bully) by Scott Starkey-

revenge of the bully

This is the third in the How to Beat the Bully series, and it finds the main character, Rodney, on the football team, having to deal with kids twice his size as well as contend with the team bully. It is a fast-paced and funny book.

Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon Hale-

rapunzel

This is a graphic novel with a twist on the fairy tale, by placing Rapunzel in the wild west and teaming her up with Jack from beanstalk fame and having them try to defeat the wicked witch who posed as her mother. It is a fun book with funny dialogue.

The Loser List #2: Revenge of the Loser by H.N. Kowitt-

revenge of the loser

This is a notebook style novel, with pictures and charts, and features Danny Shine who has gotten his name off the Loser List in the girls’ bathroom, but he’s still got problems — like the new kid, Ty Randall. Ty seems perfect: handsome, serious, committed to worthy causes — everything Danny’s not. Danny has to deal with jealousy and undoing damage he’s done.

That’s it for now. As for Michele Weber Hurwitz, revenge will be mine! And by that, I of course mean, that I’ll do absolutely nothing and sit and sulk for the next half-hour and forget all about it until I can’t remember the reason why I wrote this to begin with.

And, as for the rest of you,  I hope you all have a great Valentine’s Day, but for those of you with no interest in it, why not go the other route and check out one of these books about revenge and payback, because after all, isn’t that what Valentine’s Day is all about?

no val 2

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