The Right to Use and Reuse Content: Consumers know that digital copies of songs, words, and videos are qualitatively different than physical copies, yet copyright law treats them the same way. When the economics of scarcity no longer apply, consumers start to behave differently. They copy and reuse content in unforeseen ways. The pendulum has swung so far that normal consumer behavior has now been criminalized. The concept of fair use needs to be updated and clarified, while still balancing the fundamental right of copyright holders to profit from their creations.

This is precisely the reason I’ve started this site. What we’re experiencing today is a “systematic overclaming of copyright.” As a baseball fan, the one example that affects me every single day is Major League Baseball’s over-reaching claims with regard to baseball related media. MLB tried to claim that player names stats were copyrighted by MLB and others couldn’t use them without explicit permission, and on a daily basis the MLB removes both professional and amateur video clips from video hosting sites, even when the clips are short and probably pass the traditional ‘fair use’ test. Another great example is the Associated Press, which argues that you owe them a licensing fee if you quote more than 4 words from one of their articles (not to mention the fact they take their stories offline after 30 days for some bizarre unexplainable reason).

I believe that there are viable business models that can support fair use of electronic content, while providing value to both the copyright holder and the public. The struggles I mentioned above are largely caused by a conflict of interest — and the traditional media firms are going to have to rethink and adapt their business models if they want to thrive and succeed in today’s word — or else it we’ll just continue down this path where copyright holders harass and sue their customers to protect their outdated models and shrinking slice of the pie.