Sunday morning I had a bit of a heated Twitter discussion with @suzanne_una and @MomsL8 (Jill) regarding the high cost of a series of DVDs. The phrase "fair use" was tossed around quite a bit. The Fair Use Doctrine allows for snippets of primary content to be used in specific secondary contexts without having to license the use of that information. It does not cover the wholesale xeroxing of school textbooks or the "public performance" (e.g., playing to a group of people in an auditorium or cinema, or over a nightclub's sound system) of a TV show, movie, or song. The original content creators (or owners) have a reasonable expectation of some sort of control over the publication or performance of that content -- which often includes some sort of payment (usually money, attribution, or both).
