July 18, 2011 08:10 PM UTC

Polis: Fair Use Drives U.S. Economy

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• by: Colorado Pols

Boulder’s Rep. Jared Polis has been in the news quite a bit lately, from his leadership in Congress on ending federal marijuana prohibition to emerging as a star fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as Allison Sherry of the Denver paper reported this weekend. But here’s another positive story for Polis that’s near and dear to our hearts–The Hill:

Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) spoke at the release of an economy study [last] Monday that touts the economic benefits of exceptions to copyright law.

The study, which was commissioned by the Computer & Communications Industry Association, found that industries that depend on “fair use” exceptions to copyright laws make up one-sixth of the U.S. economy and employ one in eight American workers…

Polis compared some stringent proposals to combat copyright infringement to fighting piracy at sea by shutting down seaports. [Pols emphasis]

“These economic arguments are particularly important when there’s a lot at stake – jobs, jobs, jobs,” Polis said. “That’s something at the top of the agenda for members of both parties.”

Rep. Polis’ comments refer in part to a pending rather scary piece of legislation called the Protect IP Act, which could result in websites being shut down with dubious due process due to copyright infringement claims. In a larger sense, though, he’s talking about the entire millions-strong community–and in some cases, thriving industry–that has grown up around the fair and legally defensible use of freely available content on the web.

Many of our readers know that this blog has received legal threats from a group of Colorado newspapers, and that for over a year we have refrained from directly quoting any material from The Denver Post and others after demands were made well in excess of the law; and infringing upon our fair use rights. Since that time, the Post’s strategy of aggressively suing other online outlets making use of their content for huge sums has suffered humiliating setbacks. We weren’t a victim of the Post’s use of the notorious Righthaven, but it’s hard to claim that’s going well.

While we don’t have reason to expect that Rep. Polis has paid attention to our particular case, it’s clear that he’s taken a high level view of this issue agreeable to ours. And blogs everywhere.