Fair Use: 12 Myths and Realities

An article highlighting and discussing 12 myths that surround the fair use exception to copyright law

Fair Use in a Day in the Life of a College Student

An infographic that depicts and draws awareness to the many instances in which college students rely on fair use throughout a typical day

Fair Use Fundamentals

An info-graphic devoted to explaining the fundamentals of the Fair use exception to copyright law

A Fair Use to Remember: Restoring Application of the Fair Use Doctrine to Strengthen Copyright Law and Disarm Abusive Copyright Litigation

The primary goal of copyright law is to benefit the public. By rewarding authors with exclusive rights, such as the power to enforce copyright infringement, copyright protection is the means through which copyright law accomplishes this goal. Another way that copyright law pursues its goal is through the fair use doctrine—an invaluable utilitarian limit on copyright protection. However, fair use is, among other things, vague. The current application of fair use as an affirmative defense magnifies the doctrine’s problems and makes copyright law hospitable to abusive copyright litigation. Current proposals in this area of reform target either fair use or abusive copyright litigation. This Note targets both problems with a single solution: applying fair use as a right. Applying fair use as a right alleviates some of the doctrine’s inherent problems and is the best long-term solution for eliminating abusive litigation from copyright law. As a right, fair use protects copyright’s core values and goals, alleviates the burden on courts, and cultivates creation. A review of the motivation behind fair use reveals that as a right, fair use is best able to serve the purpose for which it was designed

Copyright Fair Use—Case Law and Legislation

Fair use is a judicially formulated concept which allows persons other than the copyright owner to use copyrighted material without permission. The present comment sets forth the rather unsettled case law definition of fair use, and recommends an analyser for delineating the relationship between fair use and an equally amorphous copyright concept, substantial similarity. This delineation is then assessed in light of the codification of fair use proposed in the copyright legislation now pending before Congress

Copyright, Free Speech, and the Public's Right to Know: How Journalists Think about Fair Use

This study, resulting from long-form interviews with 80 journalists, finds that journalistic mission is in peril, because of lack of clarity around copyright and fair use. Journalists' professional culture is highly conducive to a robust employment of their free speech rights under the copyright doctrine of fair use, but their actual knowledge of fair use practice is low. Where they have received education on copyright and fair use, it has often been erroneous. Ironically, when they do not know that they are using fair use, they nevertheless do so with a logic and reasoning that accords extremely well with today's courts' interpretation of the law. But when they have to actively make a decision about whether to employ fair use, they often resort to myths and misconceptions. Furthermore, they sometimes take unnecessary risks. The consequence of a failure to understand their free speech issues within the framework of fair use means that, when facing new practices or situations, journalists experience expense, delays and even failure to meet their mission of informing the public. These consequences are avoidable, with better and shared understanding of fair use within the experience of journalistic practice, whether it is original reporting, aggregation, within large institutions or a one-person outfit. Journalists need both to understand fair use and to articulate collectively the principles that govern its employment to meet journalistic mission

Fair Use and Social Media

This poster was created in a collaborative effort by Musselman Library’s Copyright Committee as part of a display for Fair Use Week 2018. The poster was intended to get viewers to think about the 4 factors of fair use in the context of two art projects that used social media photos: Yolocaust by Shahak Shapira and New Portraits by Richard Prince. It was also intended to get viewers thinking about the ways their social media content might get used beyond the original intention

Google Library: Beyond Fair Use?

Last December Google announced the formation of partnerships with select major libraries to begin digitizing and storing the libraries\u27 collections online. Google aims to provide individuals with the ability to search the full text of these books from anywhere using the Google search engine. This project will greatly increase access to those works in the public domain, but what about the books still under copyright protection? This iBrief examines the copyright implications of this ambitious project and concludes that the project, as described, does infringe the rights of copyright holders. It further concludes that while such infringement is unlikely to be found to be a fair use, it may ultimately be in the copyright holders\u27 best interests to acquiesce to Google\u27s infringement

Promoting Progress with Fair Use

The Intellectual Property (IP) Clause provides that Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. In the realm of copyright, Congress and the courts have interpreted the clause as granting Congress a power not to promote progress but to establish limited IP monopolies. To return to an understanding of the IP power better grounded in the constitutional text, Congress and the courts should ensure that any IP enactment promote[s] ... Progress by considering whether it improves the quality or quantity of knowledge and aids the dissemination of knowledge, and whether it does so better than prior IP enactments. The courts can exercise the fair-use doctrine to aid in this re-constitutionalization of IP law by applying a fifth fair-use factor. This proposed fifth factor would balance the progress-promoting value of the alleged infringer\u27s use against the progress-promoting value of enforcing the copyright holder\u27s rights. Reviewing courts should presume that any alleged infringement is fair if it promotes progress better than the enforcement of the copyright