Disney's New Position on Copyright - Full Reproduction is 'Fair Use'

Well, not really.

But it is funny to trace back from this comment, the author of which is a Supervising Web Producer for E! Online, within the context that E! "is owned by a joint venture between Comcast (50%), The Walt Disney Company (40%), and Liberty Media (10%)."

After locking a thread in which somebody suggests that E! Online might be sued for allowing forum participants to post the full text of articles cut and pasted from copyrighted sources, an E! employee expressed, "we are looking into a definite set of guidelines to address these types of threads." When challenged further, the E! employee asserted,

fair use anyone?

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

This inspired the retort, "Posting the entire article is hardly fair use."The E! employee countered,

im not trying to challenge anyone. im just saying its not that clear cut. but we'll leave that up to our legal team. for now, please hang tight. thank you.

Perhaps he should run it past this legal team:

Disney Enterprises Inc. and four other entertainment giants are suing two downtown Los Angeles produce vendors for allegedly selling pinatas bearing unlicensed cartoon characters.

* * *

Once, Disney sued a Florida day-care center that showed paintings of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy on its outside walls. The school took down the pictures.

I'm not meaning to pick on E's staff here - I really mean to pick on Disney.