I've Been Rubber Stamped!

Huh. Google denied my AdSense account because there were "copyrighted materials" on this blog. In their email denying the application, they state,

Hello,As mentioned in our welcome email, we conduct a second review of yourAdSense application once AdSense code is placed on your site(s). As aresult of this review, we have disapproved your account for the followingviolation(s):
Issues:
- Copyrighted Material

Huh. A little further down, they provide a link that explains that the Terms specifically prohibit the use of copyrighted material: 

Google ads may not be displayed on websites with content protected by copyright law unless they have the necessary legal rights to display or direct traffic to that content.

Huh. Last time I checked, if one provides appropriate credit for the source material, and the material is used for educational purposes, then that material falls under the "Fair Use Doctrine." Since I am not selling the content I reference, and since I credit the source material, this ought to be a no-brainer. Fair use affords me the legal right to display that content.

This is what the U.S. Copyright Office says:

Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair. 

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 
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work (Taken from http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html)

But, now my mind is tickled by Google's attempts to scan every book in existence, and how they, themselves, have tried very, very hard to violate copyrights, and hilariously, continue to do so. A quick look here will thumbnail how Google's scanning project has run afoul of copyright holders: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/whats-next-google-books-124170

This really shouldn't surprise me, since use of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is frequently used on another Google project, YouTube, to censor speech. In fact, certain YouTubers like VenomFangX have made it their life's mission to censor speech they don't like.

Now, Google's AdSense policy has no beef with links to bittorrents, per se:

Examples*

Acceptable	Not acceptable
Sites offering bittorrent clients (software for downloading torrents) Torrent search sites	Sites that host or directly link to copyrighted content Warez sites ROM sites Sites dedicated to audio or video file downloads Sites that explicitly state the material is pirated

Really? I can post links to search sites (and by extension, links to specific content that exists on that site for the sole purpose of denying copyright holders rights to their content!), but I can't fairly use work that I have properly credited? If that weren't enough, they rub the salt in a little deeper, because Google populates all of their sites with ads, regardless of whether or not contributors to their sites own the content.

In fact, when one realizes that what was so revolutionary about Berners-Lee's invention of the hyperlink, and that the hyperlink itself is fundamental to the power of the internet, for Google to whinge about fairly used and credited source material is beyond hypocrisy. It is dullard stoopit.

Thankfully, the copyright laws allow me to make derivative images of copyrighted materials, and thus, get to own the copyright of the derivative image:

Feel free to use it at will. After all, I own the copyright.