“Fair Use” and Publishing Media for Blogs and Videos

Lately I’ve been building videos of my dives in the Philippines for a SCUBA blog and one thing I’ve noticed is that it is becoming harder by the day to find a video service that recognizes fair use for ambient audio tracks. Sure there are always the royalty free audio selections but most of the “good stuff” are from records, independent label or not. Youtube started this, removing audio from edited videos despite the credits. Facebook is doing this as well. The subject of “fair use” can be scrutinized on and on.

In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose such as to comment upon, criticize or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. Another way of putting this is that fair use is a defense against infringement. If your use qualifies under the definition above, and as defined more specifically in this section, then your use would not be considered an illegal infringement. [source]

So if I use only a partial track from a song, that’s considered fair use? If you’ve been editing videos and posting one man acts on your blog, what experiences have you had with material being taken down? Look, I’m not here to challenge the policy. I just want to initiate a discussion on what can and cannot be done. The reality of the situation is that on the web, the actual practice seems to overshadow the real policy.