Copyright

Fair Use is to legally use someone else’s work without permission. This is your rights as a user of copyrighted works.

Fair Use can be found in 17 U.S.C. Section 107 (The Copyright Act).

A few things about Fair Use …

• Determining Fair Use should be on a case-by-case basis (i.e., not all scholarly uses can qualify as Fair Use)
• Fair Use is a “weighing test” and is not only limited to the 4 factors outlined in the Copyright Act (i.e., court judges may opt to include and consider other factors beyond the 4 factors)
• Fair Use is a right that is defined in federal law.

As a general rule, if you are using a small portion of somebody else’s work in a non-competitive way and the purpose for your use is to benefit the public, you’re on pretty safe ground. On the other hand, if you take large portions of someone else’s expression for your own purely commercial reasons, the rule usually won’t apply.

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. In other words, fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. If your use qualifies as a fair use, then it would not be considered an infringement.