Fair and Reasonable Criticism - Fair Use and Fair Dealing

AiG didn’t like my book (and were not willing to give their permission for me to reference some of their work) because I was analysing and consequently criticizing their beliefs (I mean really, dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark??) Having looked into Fair Use and Fair Dealing, I’m pretty sure I could have had my book published anyway despite their in-house attorney telling me I wasn’t getting their permission to quote them. Whether for a book or for a blog, Fair Use/ Dealing is a common sense thing and I believe I have and will continue to observe its freedoms and parameters.

Here’s the opening lines from the article titled ‘Fair Use’ from Wikipedia.

Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship.

The above snippet pertains to United States law, so I also looked into Australian Law and discovered that here we have what is known as Fair Dealing.

Copyright Act 1968 – Section 41

Fair Dealing for the purpose of criticism or review

A fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, or with an adaptation of a literary, dramatic or musical work, does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the work if it is for the purpose of criticism or review, whether of that work or of another work, and sufficient acknowledgment of the work is made.

(http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/s41.html)

This blog is not for financial gain, it will properly acknowledge the various authors that I may reference in posts to come, and all up the blog is a sober, in-depth and intelligent examination of what AiG believe.

I hope all this makes AiG realise that I do in fact have the right to write about them and to quote from their literature. For heaven’s sake loads of other blogs and websites have done so, and criticised AiG with impunity, so my little blog here shouldn’t offend them, but alas probably will.