David Rees's comic strip Get Your War On (and video), has been appropriated by Jamba Juice into an animated Flash video. Rees, of course, built Get Your War On using clip art, which makes matters a little trickier. Is Jamba Juice's ad a case of fair use? Or are there enough factors being used here for Rees to have a casus belli? Will we see more advertisements pilfering along these lines?
posted by ed on Jul 20, 2009 - 71 comments

Muxtape's Justin tells the story play-by-play. You may remember an earlier post about muxtape being shut down. After all kinds of speculation, discussion, and consternation, we can finally know what really happened.
posted by crazyray on Sep 26, 2008 - 32 comments

Who says women aren't funny? [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster on Mar 7, 2008 - 145 comments

As the immigration debate rages, Anti-Latino hate crimes rose by almost 35% between 2003 and 2006. Here are a few dozen of them. To some, this trend may seem perfectly FAIR.
posted by hermitosis on Dec 18, 2007 - 50 comments

Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Paris, 1900. Approximately 200 antique photographs of Paris at the turn of the 19th century, mostly from the 1900 Paris World's Fair. French CG artist Laurent Antoine is reconstructing the Exposition in Maya 3D. Bienvenue!
posted by cenoxo on Nov 11, 2007 - 13 comments

Second Life is a great place for a virtual job fair, right? Well, maybe not. (That recruiter's lucky all s/he got handed was a beer...) Even the cops are getting in on the action.. Time magazine probably thinks it's a bad idea, though maybe they wouldn't have 5 years ago.
posted by dersins on Aug 22, 2007 - 23 comments

On September 2, 1901, then vice-president Theodore Roosevelt first articulated his theory of diplomacy: "Speak softly and carry a big stick" at the Minnesota State Fair. In some sort of hideous misinterpretation of Roosevelt's quote, Minnesotans have ever since provided a dizzying array (YouTube link) of foods on the ends of sticks to be eaten as one strolls the state fair. Hotdish. Teriyaki ostrich. Pork chop. Scotch eggs. Alligator. Drugs. This year's complete and rather breathtaking list.
posted by Astro Zombie on Aug 8, 2007 - 21 comments

Leno, Other Comics Sue Over Joke Books Quote books have been legal and established as fair use, but the lawsuit claims that Ms. Brown sent representatives to comedy clubs to record comedians' routines to copy the jokes into print. Judy defends her fair use rights on Amazon's page for a previous book.
posted by basilwhite on Dec 1, 2006 - 28 comments

Gay Marriage Debate Turns Violent A violent brawl broke out on Tuesday during a discussion in a Wauwatosa restaurant over the proposed same-sex marriage referendum, and the incident was apparently caught on videotape. Video of the brawl here. 39 days until Wisconsin votes "No" on the civil unions and marriage ban.
posted by thefreek on Sep 29, 2006 - 84 comments

Have fun with your food! You may never look at fair foods the same way again thanks to this year's ad campaign for the Utah State Fair. (Warning: videos auto-start)
posted by Orb on Aug 24, 2006 - 6 comments

The Information Machine, [YouTube]. This short animated film was written, produced and directed by Charles and Ray Eames for the IBM Pavillion at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair [embedded sound]. Animation by Dolores Cannata. The topic is the computer in the context of human development.
posted by nickyskye on Jul 1, 2006 - 7 comments

The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in Rumsfeld v. FAIR, a case challenging the Solomon Amendment, a US federal law that allows the government to cut federal funding to universities that refuse to allow military recruiting on campus. FAIR is a coalition of law schools challenging this law on the basis that the US military's policy of prohibiting open homosexuals from serving violates the schools' anti-discrimination policies (see section 6-3). Summing the issue up nicely, the dean of one law school said of the US military, "If it were a private employer who discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation, race or gender, we wouldn't allow them here on campus." .rm C-SPAN coverage here.
posted by thirteenkiller on Dec 7, 2005 - 56 comments

Think you're in full control of your computer? Think again. Intel has just quietly added one of the necessary components of Microsoft's (and the TCG/TCPA's) DRM technology, Palladium, to the PC platform. Some say this is a move against rampant Chinese software piracy, others think it's a power grab by the content producers. Left unchecked, content and software producers will have the final say in how you use your computer, fair use be damned.
posted by id on May 28, 2005 - 55 comments

"You can't copyright anything on the Internet" Retrocrush posted an article written by thier own, to point out the "Worst Sex Scenes Ever" in the movies. Less than 30days later, the british tabloid "The Daily Star" printed an article that seems to have come directly from the site, attributing the source to a (seemingly fictitous) american magazine called "Film". Not only did the Star's news editor make the above quote, but the story was picked up by a wire service, and has seen print in several other online and print publications... Obviously it's not Fair Use. What would happen if reporters came here looking for ideas?
posted by niteHawk on Jan 6, 2004 - 27 comments

Monkeys down tools . - Demand fair pay for a fair day's work. " Researchers taught brown capuchin monkeys to swap tokens for food. Usually they were happy to exchange this "money" for cucumber. But if they saw another monkey getting a grape - a more-liked food - they took offence. Some refused to work, others took the food and refused to eat it. "
posted by Blue Stone on Sep 22, 2003 - 21 comments

CIA funds "alternative" media through nonprofit foundations? "The multi-billion dollar Ford Foundation's historic relationship to the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] is rarely mentioned on Pacifica's DEMOCRACY NOW / Deep Dish TV show, on FAIR's COUNTERSPIN show, on the WORKING ASSETS RADIO show, on The Nation Institute's RADIO NATION show, on David Barsamian's ALTERNATIVE RADIO show or in the pages of PROGRESSIVE, MOTHER JONES and Z magazine. One reason may be because the Ford Foundation and other Establishment foundations subsidize the Establishment Left's alternative media gatekeepers / censors" -- heavy claims. A several part report, in considerable detail. My note - the Mexican PRI, when it ran Mexico, used to fund a whole constellation of Mexican Leftist groups - the threat of withdrawing funding $ proved a very effective way of keeping dissent within "safe" limits.
posted by troutfishing on Oct 30, 2002 - 27 comments

Should punishments be "creative"? Judge Michael Cicconett has sentenced a kid with a loud radio to sit quietly in the woods, a man to hang out with a pig, at least one guy to run a race to diminish his jail sentence. Now Judge Michael Cicconetti is back in the news for sentencing a couple to print apologies in the local newspaper for their tryst on a public beach. These are rather inconsequential sentences for very minor crimes, but one might still ask: Does creative sentencing seems intuitively more fair and/or effective, or does it seem to leave justice up to the capriciousness of the judge?
posted by sj on Jul 1, 2002 - 23 comments

Occupied territories no longer "occupied" on TV news The turmoil in the Middle East has been a top international story on television news since fighting broke out in the West Bank and Gaza. But amid the constant flow of footage showing violent confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, a central fact of the conflict has been missing from almost all network TV coverage: The West Bank and Gaza are occupied territories. The right to use force to resist foreign occupation is universally recognized and enshrined in international law. via thewebtoday
posted by lagado on Nov 14, 2000 - 0 comments

Crackpots brought to you by 'balance" is a piece over at the Boston Globe on the state of the media today. It focuses on the media's handling of the whole Elian G. business, but it also takes a different angle on the more general matter of being journalistically 'fair' . . . which I thought interesting too in the light of growth of online fora and web logs (and perhaps also ask-an-expert sites?) which are coming to be considered as legitimate news resources.
posted by mrpalomar on Apr 27, 2000 - 7 comments