User blog comment:Semanticdrifter/Understanding Fair Use/@comment-4519283-20121202235914/@comment-168424-20121210190357

Lack of negative effect is the main rationale of most fair use usages of content, but The 888th Avatar's is more along the lines of "better to ask forgiveness than permission" and should probably not be taken as a good guideline. Admins and founders should make a good faith attempt to get permission when copying such large portions of copyrighted material. If the owner fails to respond to a good faith effort, that is closer to permission than waiting for them to ask for the content to be taken down.