Does Google's Answer box is really fair use ?

[Travis]

Usually, we sum up fair use as using a short portion of a work, and crediting the source. Which is what Google is doing, with its answer boxes. However, the third factor of the Fair use doctrine is not only a matter of "amount", it is "Amount and substantiality". If the portion reproduced represents the heart of the work, then it's no longer considered fair use. Taking the answer from a site and displaying it, sounds like reproducing the "heart of the work". No ?

[keyplyr]

The term "fair use" is always applied as justification for plagiary & always by the plagiarist and never the plagiarized IMO.

fair use
noun
(in US copyright law) the doctrine that brief excerpts of copyright material may, under certain circumstances, be quoted verbatim for purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching, and research, without the need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder.

Note: the above content was taken by Google as "fair use" from Dictionary.com. I had no need to go to the website.

Google's overall intention of using content from 3rd parties is not to help or educate the user as they say, but to benefit Google itself by removing the need for that user to leave Google's page.

This has been discussed before. What's the solution? Google's webpages, Google's rules.

[tangor]

There has been (and probably will be forever) absolute confusion for webmasters on what is "fair use" and complaining a breach thereof. There's a difference between "fair use" and "facts". You can copyright one, but not the other. Search engine answer boxes (bing has one, too) are generally FACTS--a chunk of data or description of same. These are not articles and thus aren't in violation of copyright law.

PLUS the fact that most of these bits of data are snippets supplied by the webmaster to seek ranking advantage in the SERP. It is tough to have your cake and eat it, too.

[MrSavage]

Says the guy who isn't affected.

[glitterball]

@tangor What exactly constitutes a 'FACT'?

I am seeing lots of Google's auto-generated content (mostly Destination Guides) where they include information that is incorrect.
Can a fact be incorrect? Perhaps now we have incorrect facts, but it's okay to reproduce the incorrect 'fact' because of fair use?

Maybe we truly are living in the post-truth era.

[tangor]

If something is incorrect it isn't anything. A fact is Madrid is not London, etc. Street names and addresses are facts. Phone numbers. Number of rooms ...

A REVIEW is an article which can contain facts but is not required to do so.

Fair use is generally defined as using content created by another for the purpose of scholarly report and review or, more recently, parody. Some industries have more rigid formats of fair use, see the 5-20 second audio clips of songs at that user edited thingie that appears at the top of the serps so often for an example. The key part is CREATED CONTENT. A list of scores from your favorite team is not "content". Commentary of game play, however, IS content.

The answer box is nothing more than the serp zero position and everyone should be doing all they can to win that lottery instead of complaining about "fair use" incorrectly.

[glitterball]

The answer box is nothing more than the serp zero position and everyone should be doing all they can to win that lottery instead of complaining about "fair use" incorrectly.

What answer box? I'm seeing most of the page covered in Google content with no links to non-google pages.