The idea is, since copyright stays in existence whether you enforce it or not (unlike trademark), an owner can basically ignore copyright infringement for days or weeks or years, and then suddenly change her mind and enforce.

Yup. Which is why, legally, "fair use" boils down to "whatever you can get away with at the time." It's up to the copyright holder to decide whether they're being infringed upon -- there are no hard and fast rules about what you can and can't use, or how much, or for how long. None.

Well, yes and no.

Trademark violations involve an opportunity for confusion. You don't lose your trademark, but you can dilute your ability to enforce it if you say, ignore nine or ten uses you don't mind and try and then protest one that you do. Then number 11 might effectively argue "well, you didn't object to these other guys" but you still own the trademark.

Copyright violations, on the other hand, involves use of the material its self. It's not a question of confusion at all. Fair use* is determined by:

1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

4) the effect of the use upon the potential marked for or value of the copyrighted work.

So, using clips to make money is different than using clips to crack up your friends (and who makes the money is important). Two lines of a film is different than two lines of a four line poem. Are you hurting sales with your use, etc. All come into play.

Of course, a lot the outcome IS influnced by who choses to pursue what -- Lucasfilms will go after ANYBODY for ANYTHING involving Star Wars. If anybody could afford to take them on in court Lucasfilms would lose plenty of them. But that's not the law per se, that's corporate muscle.

*(FTR, I'm not a complete nerd, I have the statute sitting by my desk at work)

There's my second question--why own both?

Aside from Jessica's answer, there's also the ¿why own both TypePad and LiveJournal? question -- even before the YouTube deal, they were dressing up Google Video as the more serious, grown-up, corporate-friendly dealy-o. Now they get to keep those deals and also get the kids with their crazy viral marketing hijinks.

Point me to the hard and fast rules within that statute, though, Trudy. Fair use laws are vague, and deliberately so. The so-called "rules" that "everyone knows" (parody, news-for-news, etc), are gentlemen's agreements, not law.

(And I am a complete nerd, but I also do this for a living. Explaining fair use to clients with stupid entertainment lawyers who tell them they should be getting everything for free because [insert fair use urban legend here] is easily the most annoying part of my job.)

Daniel Baldwin booked for Grand Theft Auto.

Point me to the hard and fast rules within that statute, though, Trudy. Fair use laws are vague, and deliberately so. The so-called "rules" that "everyone knows" (parody, news-for-news, etc), are gentlemen's agreements, not law.

They are not codified in the statute, but this is a common law country, and precedent controls. It's not so much deliberately vague as simply case-dependent, and parody, news for news and the like are well established in the case law. You're right that the 10s thing is bullshit, but it's not the case that there's no room for case precedent in determining what's fair use.

Top Chef:

I loved both challenges, especially the idea of calorie restriction. I was actually kind of surprised that the meals came in under 500 calories myself--it didn't seem like the portions were that small. I thought the combos seemed pretty crazy though (lasagna and chicken?).

Also, I agree that Sam should've have spoken up earlier (did they learn nothing from the lychee incident?), but especially should have named names on the olive oil after Mia called out Betty.

(And I am a complete nerd, but I also do this for a living. Explaining fair use to clients with stupid entertainment lawyers who tell them they should be getting everything for free because [insert fair use urban legend here] is easily the most annoying part of my job.)

Ha! I'm also a complete nerd, and I get exactly the same annoying clients, only mine bought the urban myth about how any educational use is fair use.

(Not surprisingly, I was just about to say the same thing about deliberately vague guidelines, no hard-and-fast anything, no specific number of seconds or pages or whatev.)

Okay, no definitive news on my thing, but possibilities are still open. Now Monday is the day.

I hate waiting.

I am a third complete nerd, who is attending a meeting tomorrow about whether librarians are allowed to print out copies for students who can't get into their e-reserves without first checking with the registrar to see if they are registered in the class! 'Cause the evil evil piracy of articles on post-communist Russia by undergraduates is ruining the country, I tells ya.

Also relating Top Chef, I would love to see the word amuse-bouche eliminated from restaurant lexicon. It is not an expression the French use and it sounds ridiculous.