What Is the Meaning of Fair Use?
What is the meaning of fair use? Fair use is a somewhat ambiguous term used legally to describe the limited circumstances when a copyrighted material can be used without permission from the copyright holder. Fair use limitations are written into United States copyright law, but particularly in the age of the Internet, the terms of the doctrine aren’t always easy to understand. So, what does fair use mean?
Whether or not a situation qualifies as fair use is determined by what is called the "four factor analysis test", so applying this test is how you determine exactly what fair use means. This consists of four factors which, if met, qualify the usage of the material under the statute. The four factors are as follows.
1. Purpose and Character
This refers to why the material is being used. If a piece of copyrighted material is being used to stimulate creativity, it will be looked upon more kindly than if it is being used for profit. “Stimulating creativity” can mean, for example, the use of a copyrighted symbol or product in an artistic parody.
The parody is being used to transform the original material and stimulate creative thinking by the public. This type of usage is considered valid, as opposed to simply borrowing someone else’s copyrighted material and piggybacking off of it by including it in your own work – especially for the purposes of profit.
2. Nature of the Work
There are some materials that may technically fall under copyright; but, if they are considered socially useful and their use may contribute to freely available information of public interest, the material may fall under fair usage terms. For example, the Zapruder film of the assassination of President Kennedy was originally copyrighted, but its reproduction in hundreds of books and documentaries superseded the privately-held copyright and made it invalid, because the information was being used for public interest purposes.
3. Amount and Substantiality
How much does the original work appear in the new work? The less similar the two are, the more likely it is that the usage is fair. For example, if a person makes a film in which some characters are watching a movie, and part of that movie is shown in the film, the holders of copyright on the movie may object to this as infringement on their copyright.
However, this small portion of their movie being shown would be a lot more likely to be considered fair usage than if the person skipped making his own movie altogether and just copied the first one, then charged people to come and see it. This can also be applied to the usage of quotes – one or two words pulled from a poem, for example, may barely need citation, while full quotation of the poem would require permission from the copyright holder.
4. Effect on Value
Several circumstances are all examined in a hearing of fair use and are used to determine what the meaning of fair use is as it applies to a given situation:
- Does the usage exploit the original work or lower its value?
- Will the original copyright holder lose out because of this copying that took place?
- Will people use the copy instead of the original, thus costing him profit; or will the copy turn people away from using the original, thus doing the same?