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The SouthFront.org web site and other SouthFront sources (Facebook, Youtube etc) contain copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. SouthFront makes such material available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, scientific, social justice issues, etc.
U.S. Law
Pursuant to the U.S. Copyright Act as amended, the rights granted by copyright are limited by the doctrine of fair use as codified at 17 U.S. Code Section 107, including use for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research, all of which are germane to the fair use by SouthFront.
The fair-use factors of Section 107 weigh substantially in favor of fair use by southfront.org, including “the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature [here, no] or is for nonprofit educational purposes” [here, yes]; the nature of the copyrighted work and the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, and “the effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work” [no effect, as SouthFront is neither selling the work in question nor reproducing it in any tangible format or other medium by which it is either being sold by others or satisfying any end-user demand, if any, for such content.]
EU Law
Big US companies operating in Europe will be subject to EU law rather than American court orders under the new rules.
As regards the use of copyrighted material within the European Union. The European Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society provides in its art. 5 an exhaustive list of exemptions that can be implemented by the Member States.
Another exemption is “reproduction by the press, communication to the public or making available of published articles on current economic, political or religious topics or of broadcast works or other subject-matter of the same character, in cases where such use is not expressly reserved, and as long as the source, including the author’s name, is indicated, or use of works or other subject-matter in connection with the reporting of current events, to the extent justified by the informatory purpose and as long as the source, including the author’s name, is indicated, unless this turns out to be impossible”.
All the exceptions must comply with the three step test which imply that exemptions must only apply in certain special cases which do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work or other subject-matter and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the rightholder .
