Advocacy

Report on Fair Use and Copyright Control

In summer 2005, CAA members--including artists, scholars, curators, and gallerists--took part in a focus group conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice's Free Expression Policy Project (FEPP) to gather information on how copyright law in today's "ownership society" affects the arts. FEPP conducted more than a year of research on the impact of current copyright law and practice on the arts and has issued a report, entitled "Will Fair Use Survive? Free Expression in the Age of Copyright Control." The report argues that increasingly heavy assertions of control by copyright and trademark owners are smothering fair use and free expression. With background on copyright, trademark, "cease and desist" letters, and dozens of firsthand stories from artists, scholars, bloggers, and others, "Will Fair Use Survive?" paints a striking picture of an intellectual-property system out of balance. Six recommendations for change are proposed.

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The College Art Association supports all practitioners and interpreters of visual art and culture, including artists and scholars, who join together to cultivate the ongoing understanding of art as a fundamental form of human expression. Representing its members’ professional needs, CAA is committed to the highest professional and ethical standards of scholarship, creativity, connoisseurship, criticism, and teaching.