Fair Use?

The excerpt from Laurence Lessig's "Future of Ideas" paints a disturbing picture of the"generic-ization" of movies as a result of applying copyright laws:

“Ten years ago,” Guggenheim explains, “if incidental artwork . . . was recognized by a common person,” then you would have to clear its copyright. Today, things are very different. Now “if any piece of artwork is recognizable by anybody . . . then you have to clear the rights of that and pay” to use the work. “[A]lmost every piece of artwork, any piece of furniture, or sculpture, has to be cleared before you can use it.”

The question I have is, what ever happened to fair use? News organizations and others have long been able to use relatively small segments of copyrighted works in their reporting, I assume because showing one question from an interview or news report hardly violates the rights of the copyright holder. So why is it now such a big problem for movie makers to include a fleeting glance of the coca-cola symbol?

I would have to imagine that part of the problem is that for-profit companies not only work incredibly hard to protect their brands, but also attempt to make money in any way they can. There was certainly a time when movie makers could create a film without worrying about this issue, but once the floodgates opened to challenging this use it snowballed. In addition, corporate brands probably fall under a different statute than creative works in terms of fair use.

I think Lessig is ultimately right that property rights need to be reevaluated in light of the recent technological changes our society has faced. There needs to be an understanding of fair use of copyrighted works that makes sense. I'm not sure exactly what these changes would involve (that would probably require reading the rest of Lessig's book, for starters), but it's pretty clear from the examples he presents that the current situation is strangling creativity in movie making, much less in other mediums.