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Copyright

Fair Use

What Is Fair Use?

Fair use involves using photos, tables, or other parts of someone else's work in a way that meets certain criteria, therefore allowing the user to use the work without obtaining explicit permission from the copyright owner.

Crews & Buttler created the well-known fair use checklist, a helpful guide in understanding the significant factors of fair use.

The four factors to consider in the Crews & Buttler fair use analysis checklist:

  1. The nature of the copyrighted work
    • Is it more creative or more factual? Creative works have more robust copyright protection than factual works.
  2. The purpose of the use
    • Is it for profit, for education, for commentary? Courts have found use for parody, commentary, and news reporting to be fair use. An important question in analyzing "purpose of the use" is to consider whether or not your use of a copyrighted work is "transformative." If your use of a copyrighted work builds upon the work or changes it such that it becomes something distinctly new (a transformative rather than derivative use), then your use more strongly favors fair use.  An example of a transformative use might be taking something meant for entertainment and analyzing it critically while comparing it to other related work.
  3. The amount of the copyrighted work
    • Do you want to use all of it, a portion of it, the most important part of it? Even a small amount, if the most important part of the work, can disfavor fair use.
  4. The effect on the market of the copyrighted work
    • How does your use potentially affect the market/sales of the work? If it could potentially harm the market of the work, then it may not be considered fair use.

Keep in mind that claiming fair use does not protect you from a challenge from the copyright owner. So, in addition to completing the checklist, it is recommended that you contact the copyright owner and keep a record of all such communications. Keeping a record shows your efforts to work with the rights holder, and the resulting communication may contribute to your analysis of whether a use is fair. 

In all cases, be sure to give appropriate credit when using others' work!