Shhh! Ya Wanna Git Soooed?

Apparently some douchebag who owns some fishwrap out west is suing Clayton Cramer's Armed Citizen blog for copyright infringement. Being as how this particular blog tends to excerpt from sources, I'll admit that it made my sphincter pucker a little to see this going down. I hunted down some information on "Fair Use" just for a little clarification:

Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

Well, this blog is definitely non-profit. Educational, well, if you mean learning new and creative ways to tell other drivers to perform physical impossibilities on themselves, then I guess that covers it. I tend to excerpt very small portions of articles for this very reason - it's hard to argue that I'm deriving any benefit from linking the first 2 or 3 paragraphs of an article.

Joe Huffman points us to this post over at "No Lawyers - Only Guns and Money" which lists which media outlets are owned by the same group that is suing The Armed Citizen. He has also generously created a "blacklist" search here where you can "check to see if a URL belongs to an organization likely to sue if their content is referenced without payment." Thanks Joe! (and please don't sue me! I have no money anyways!).

I don't know what we can do about such parasites as the company suing Clayton, but if there's a defense fund set up, I'd be happy to donate...

That is all.