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Copyright, Fair Use & Creative Commons

What is Fair Use?

Fair Use is a doctrine of U.S. copyright law. Court cases in the past had conceded the need for those creating new works to be able to access old works and recognized that sometimes such access resulted in the infringement of copyright laws. These cases agreed that this type of infringement was ultimately for the good of the country. Finally, in 1976, this opinion was set down in the Copyright Act as 17 U.S. Code § 107 - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use. Fair Use Doctrine states that using another's work is not an infringement of owners' rights if the purposes are for such things as, "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching..., scholarship, or research". All of which help to support the "Progress of Science and useful Arts."

Fair Use (4 min.)

A Fair(y) Use Tale