It’s copyright week, and to help promote it, I wrote an op-ed piece for Wired about the important issue of Fair Use on the internet.  It’s a legal doctrine that’s almost taken for granted…but without it, much of today’s social web wouldn’t be possible.  Individuals and companies, especially, should be vigilant about protecting Fair Use. 

Users who post content to a company’s services are a constituency whose expression deserves to be protected. Until copyright laws change to provide some meaningful penalties for targeting fair use, internet companies need to be more active on copyright issues, serving as the first line of defense in protecting the fair uses of content that have helped to make their platforms so popular. Not to mention profitable, as fair use of content drives consumer demand for online information and services.