This guy must be buds with Valenti

Robert Kahn: "the country needs to deal with 'the widespread lack of respect for the value of intellectual property" and claims there's really no such thing as fair use, since it was put in place by the courts and not codified as law." [via techdirt]

FAIR USE WAS NEVER MEANT TO APPLY TO CONSUMERS, therefore why should they respect it. Fair use can be derived directly from the copyright clause notwithstanding section 107 fair use. In the course of copyright legislation and through a drafting error that occurred at the time of the 1909 act fair use was now being applied to consumers where previously it had only applied to a competitor’s use or piracy:

“‘As originally promulgated, the fair use doctrine was a fair "competitive" use doctrine designed to enable a rival author or publisher to use a copyrighted work in preparing another publication.’ Therefore, the doctrine applied only to competitors, not consumers.”

Therefore an individual user should not be liable for copyright infringement unless their actions rise to the level of piracy. Allow Professor Patterson to explain: "The competitor uses the copyright; the consumer uses the work. The copyright owner, by reason of the Copyright Act and the copyright clause, has not only no right to interfere, but a duty not to interfere with the consumer's use of a publicly disseminated work."

Jack Valenti fair use comments here.

update: Ipsos-Reid Research: File Traders Feel Activities Are Not Wrong

Also, the RIAA has sent letters to 300 corporations complaining about alleged piracy and copyright infringement on corporate computer networks and warning of possible fines. [c|net]