Fair Use is a legally protected right of access to copyrighted materials, and deals with the limitations of copyright holders in the public interest. Reporting, education, criticism and parody are all protected under the Fair Use section in U.S. copyright law.

“Big Content” (aka content providers who are part of Big Business) wants to change that — here and abroad — in order to gain more rights over their content, regardless of public interest. It’s a quiet power grab of which few are aware.

A recent article on Ars Technica quotes copyright law expert William Patry’s reference to a “counter-reformation” against the very idea of Fair Use and its expansion, along with intellectual property rights, across the globe.

“The purpose of the movement,” he says in a recent blog post, “is to chill the willingness of countries to enact fair use or liberal fair dealing provisions designed to genuinely further innovation and creativity, rather than, as is currently the case, merely to give lip service to those concepts as the scope of copyright is expanded to were-rabbit size.”

Continued