| HN Mirror

Very different in character. The US fair use four factor test (https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/) is really flexible. You don't need to fall into an enumerated exception to infringement to argue that your use is transformative, won't substitute in the marketplace, etc.

Look at the famous Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc. case. Google scanned every work they could put their hands on and showed excerpts to searching users. Copying and distribution on an incredible scale! Yet, they get to argue that it won't substitute in the marketplace (the snippets are too small to prevent people buying a book), it's a transformative use (this is about searching books not reading books), and the actual disclosed text is small (even if the copying in the backend is large scale).

On the other hand, fair dealing is purpose specific. Those enumerated purposes vary across jurisdictions and India's seems broadish (I live in a different fair dealing jurisdiction). Reading s52 your purposes are:

- private or personal use, including research

- criticism or review, whether of that work or of any other work

- reporting of current events and current affairs, including the reporting of a lecture delivered in public.

Within those confines, you then get to argue purpose (e.g. how transformative), amount used, market effect, nature of the copyrighted work, etc. But if your use doesn't fall into the allowed purposes, you're out of luck to begin with.

I'm not familiar enough with Indian common law to know if the media clips those youtubers you mentioned should fall within the reporting purpose. I'm sure the answer would be complex. But all of this is to say, we often treat the world like it has one copyright law (one of the better ones) when that's not the case! Something appreciated by TFA.