Fair Use Network Launches

By Eric Goldman

An intriguing new resource, the Fair Use Network, has launched. This website is a project of the Free Expression Policy Project at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. This is the same group that put out the very good report, Will Fair Use Survive? Free Expression in the Age of Copyright Control, last December.

The Fair Use Network is a practical response to that report’s findings of “massive confusion among artists, scholars, and others about fair use, and a need for pro bono legal help and comprehensible resource materials.” The site has a number of interesting resources, but its strength is as a single-stop destination for an unrepresented party staring down the barrel of a nasty bigfoot C&D letter. Information designed to help these recipients is already online, but it’s sprinkled throughout the web. Here, it’s all pulled together in one place and in an accessible format. So, going forward, when I get the inquiries from C&D recipients that I can’t or shouldn’t handle, I’ll be pointing them to this site first.