As a long-time writer, this case will have little impact on me, but I maintain a hope it’ll expand the limits of fair use and let us make more shared worlds than we’re allowed to.
Fair use was designed for teachers photocopying pages of Walden for their pupils to read over the weekend. Not industrial-scale laundering of IP to benefit shareholders.
> Fair use was designed for teachers photocopying pages of Walden for their pupils to read over the weekend.
Walden was first published in 1854. At the time, the maximum length of copyright in the US was 28 years (14 at first + 14 on renewal).
Notions of "fair use" in the US can be traced back to the mid-1800s, too. There were court rulings, but fair use was not codified into law until 1976. Non-profit educational use was explicitly called out in 1976 also.
I just want writers to receive a bigger share of the cake, so publisher megacorps aren't the ones grabbing the lion's share. Writers could make a better living, and copyright could be reformed so corpos can't gate popular culture for more than two generations.
Writers decide if they want to use a publisher and which publishers to use. With the internet, I don't think any good author needs to rely on a traditional publisher.
Anybody can self publish on Apple Books, and probably on Amazon as well. Who cares about Random House, or B&N endcap (whatever that is). A "good author" in this case is somebody who can independently make sure his book is readable, and doesn't have to rely on a publisher to fix spelling, get pages in order, and such.