I’m speaking on a panel tomorrow at the Third Pacific Northwest Arts & Entertainment Symposium.  The panel’s called “Creative Commons / Fair Use.”  To get ready, I’ve been reviewing some gems I’ve looked at before.  Among them is a wonderful report, titled Will Fair Use Survive? Free Expression in the Age of Copyright Control, from the Free Expression Policy Project at NYU Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice.

The following bit from the report’s introduction caught my eye as especially pertinent to blogging:

Fair use is critical to political and cultural life.  If permission were required every time a document is copied for personal use, or a quote or image is incorporated into a new work, the costs and logistical difficulties of finding owners, seeking licenses, and paying for them would cripple our ability to share ideas.  Education would be severely hampered if teachers had to get permission for every article or picture they copy for classroom use.  And copyright owners could censor speech by denying permission to anyone whose views they disliked. …  From classical music to jazz and rock ‘n roll, Impressionist painting to Pop art, “appropriation” is a building block of creativity.  The concept of fair use, and similar First Amendment protections in trademark law, guarantee breathing space for free expression.

Here, here!  If you haven’t read this report, you should.  You can download a free copy at the web page linked above.