Wiki Page, GOTT Clover II: Use Responsibly (4 of 6): Fair Use

Wiki Page
2016-08-14T21:35:24-06:00

In some cases, you may not need permission from a copyright holder to reproduce a work. In the United States, Section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act allows others to use copyrighted works under certain conditions, including for "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research, " under provisions of fair use. This is what enables scholars to use portions of other authors' works to support their own without requesting permission.

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How do you know if your use of copyrighted material is protected under fair use?

Four factors are considered when determining whether a use is fair or not:

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes

2. The nature of the copyrighted work

3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole

4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

Fair use is not always easy to determine, but generally, citing small portions (though no standard limit is defined) of an article or other work in scholarly writing or research papers is considered fair. Several tools do exist to help you, including a Fair Use Evaluator from the American Library Association.

Be careful not to assume that the privileges provided by fair use exempt researchers from crediting the creators of copyrighted works. Original information must always be properly cited, whether copyrighted or not.