More superstition

Joanna Ossinger, a Journal copyeditor, writes in the  WSJ.com – The Problem With Parody.

It’s difficult to tell how such cases would fare in a courtroom. Copyright law doesn’t specifically address Internet parodies, so they would fall under "fair use" doctrine, which covers newly developed technologies and situations.

This, of course, is nonsense. That’s not what fair use is, and an Internet parody is no different from any other kind of parody.

So many decisions we make every day are about stuff we know almost nothing about. We believe our tech guys or the writers at the Wall Street Journal. We believe the car dealer or the talking head on Fox. We make decisions about website design, product quality, environmental impact and yes, copyright law, all without understanding the basic principles involved.

No, you can’t learn everything–they keep making more info every day, and you’ll never keep up. But being a polymath is underrated. Today, it’s almost essential that you dig deep enough, that when you’re making a high-leverage decision, it’s essential to know if it’s based on superstion or fact.