I've often wondered if there ought to be some kind of access to culture defense for copyright infringement.
The creators of copyrighted works reap the benefits of their work becoming integral parts of popular culture; their status as culturally significant works afford them a wide range of pecuniary and non-pecuniary benefits.
At the same time, there is a negative externality associated with a copyrighted work becoming part of popular culture; insofar as one must stay abreast of developments in popular culture to continue having meaningful discussions with friends, to understand the terminology other people use, and indeed to make their own original contributions to popular culture.
There definitely is. That's a large part of the essence of fair use -- which allows commentary, parody, and reporting on copyrighted works without any say by the copyright holder, as well as use in education and research (and, with the first sale doctrine, allows libraries to lend books, music and movies to the public for (more or less) free).
Too late to edit, but it's also the point of having all works eventually enter into the public domain (and a powerful argument for shorter copyright lengths).
The creators of copyrighted works reap the benefits of their work becoming integral parts of popular culture; their status as culturally significant works afford them a wide range of pecuniary and non-pecuniary benefits.
At the same time, there is a negative externality associated with a copyrighted work becoming part of popular culture; insofar as one must stay abreast of developments in popular culture to continue having meaningful discussions with friends, to understand the terminology other people use, and indeed to make their own original contributions to popular culture.