Welcome to the Mind Virus Podcast

The Mind Virus Podcast is an exercise in free thought and philosophy.

This website and podcast contains some quotations and excerpts from copyrighted material. These uses fall well within the copyright doctrine of "Fair Use."

Section 107 of the United States Code, Title 17, specifies the conditions under which, "the fair use of a copyrighted work . . . for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching . . ., scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright." It provides four considerations for determining fair use: (1) The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes, (2) The nature of the copyrighted work, (3) The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, and (4) The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work.

The use on this website and podcast of other material is primarily for criticism, comment, news reporting, scholarship or research and teaching. (1) (a) The "purpose and character" of the website, podcast and any derivative book(s) are not commercial. (b) The overwhelming majority of the material is the authors' original work. It is in no way a mere collection of others’ copyrighted works, nor competitive with those sources. (2) The nature of the copyrighted work quoted is often "news" or "history," categories given lesser protection in fair use cases than works of fiction. (3) Most uses involve excerpts rather than entire works.

Because the adverse financial impact on copyright owners is central to the purpose of copyright law, and the analysis of alleged violations, it’s relevant to note that, under factor (4), (a) no one in search of the quoted material would substitute this website, podcast or related book(s) for the original source, (b) it is highly unlikely this website, podcast, or book(s) created from it will ever have more than a de minimis impact on any of the copyright works’ potential market, and (c) to the extent it might do so, it would be far more likely be a positive, rather than a negative, impact (by drawing attention to the work, crediting it, and providing a source where it may be found).

Welcome to the Mind Virus Podcast

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