In a victory for small-time music copiers over the entertainment industry, a federal judge ruled today that copyright-holders can't order one of their songs removed from the Web without first checking to see if the excerpt was so small and innocuous that it was legal.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose was the first in the nation to require the owner of the rights to a creative work to consider whether an on-line copy was a "fair use" - a small or insignificant replication that couldn't have affected the market for the original - before ordering the Web host to take it down.

The decision isn't as far reaching as it ideally needs to be, but its a small positive step.

Read the whole thing here to learn more.