Save the Internet: The SOPA/PIPA thread.

[Raz]

This is somewhat unrelated to the whole SOPA thing (though not IP law altogether)... but how exactly can tSR claim Fair Use?

Well, fair use is a fairly ambiguous law, and it's written to be that way. There's really a couple of pieces of criteria for defining what could be considered fair use;

1. The purpose of hosting the images: In this case the Spriters Resource are trying to create an index of all of the sprite sheets available and archive them. The images are not considered for commercial use as we've mentioned to people who want to use ripped sprites in games they plan to receive a financial return from

2. The amount of the original "source" has been copied over: This one is hard in terms of software but copying over the image resources, which visually a big part of a video game is relatively small in comparison to the whole finished product.

3. Affect on the work's value: What we're doing here isn't intended to be in any way, shape or form, detrimental to the original works, indeed you'll find that tSR generally stimulates discussions about the works from which the sheets were derived.

We've never been challenged on it, of course and it's generally put down to how you interpret the law. There was a ruling in 2009 though (IIRC) that basically stated that a copyright holder may not demand the removal of an image without first establishing if it falls under the fair use limitation.

I'm not a lawyer and this certainly isn't something that you should quote me on, but since we've never had a problem, and the fact remains that the site is here as a labour of love rather than a money making machine we feel like if we were ever charged with infringing (Though if we received a DMCA takedown we'd comply before it ever got to litigation) on a content holders copyright we'd have a solid defence.

I hope that clears it up for you a little!