The Lessig article discusses the conceptof “Fair Use” when it comes to copyright issues. The article was about Jon Else a film maker who ran into copyright issues regarding the Simpsons TV show while filming a documentary. He was trying to do the right thing and get permission to use a 4 second clip of the Simpsons TV show in his documentary. When he asked FOX for permission he was given permission to use it for a small fee of $10,000. Else obviously ended up editing out the 4 sec clip that had the Simpsons show in it even though he felt sure that is would fall under Fair use, which would mean that he did not have to pay the $10,000 fee in order to use the clip. Else did not want to face the up hill legal battle with FOX in order to use the Simpsons clip.
I felt that this articel was relevant to the class since we were discussing copyright issues, but it did relate in a very round about way. After reading this article I was very surprised that FOX would charge such a large fee for the use of a clip of their show in a educational documentary. I would think that they would charge less for the use of their product in educational documentaries. Even after reading this discussion on I am still unclear of exactly what it entails. I know that under certain circumstances it is ok to uses material that has a copyright with out the permission of the owner, but I am still unclear of what those certain circumstances are. It seemed as though the whole topic of fair use if very unclear after reading this article.
