Sep
18Celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day and Promote Fair Use

Avast! September 19, 2008 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day around the world.  Okay, it might not be a real holiday, but it's a great chance to have fun and talk like a pirate with friends and colleagues at work.  To prepare for the day, consider learning How to Talk Like a Pirate, or look through a collection of more than 800 pirate-related jokes. This day is a light-hearted chance to celebrate all things related to sea-faring pirates and the images they portray from Treasure Island through the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

One thing this day isn't about is copyright piracy.  Just because you might like to talk like a pirate, this doesn't mean you support pirating other's intellectual property.  So today, if you chose to talk like a pirate, also consider thinking about fair use.  Following is an image to promote the idea.

If you want to learn more about intellectual property in general, we have a page listing major treatises on the topic, as well as a list of intellectual property resources we provide for the Georgetown Law community.  For more information specifically about Fair Use under United States Law, read the primary statute on the topic: 17 U.S.C. § 107. Then go on to check out Stanford's Fair Use Center the AALL Copyright Committee's page on the topic, or a list of fair use resources from the University of California.

For an advanced topic, check out a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video, or read Bound by Law?, a great comic book examining the fine line between fair use and copyright infringement.  So talk like a pirate, me hearties.  Just don't assume liking fair use means you engage in piracy.