What does Fair Use mean?
Fair Use is a legal doctrine in United States copyright law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder — in circumstances where the use is considered socially beneficial and unlikely to harm the copyright holder’s market. Courts evaluate fair use claims using a four-factor test considering the purpose of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount used, and the effect on the market for the original work.
Example:The documentary filmmaker used brief clips from commercial films to illustrate her analysis of child actor stereotypes — a use her entertainment attorney advised was likely to qualify as fair use given the transformative educational purpose and limited amount of each clip used.
Example: The parent asked whether using a popular song in her child’s self-tape background would constitute fair use — her entertainment attorney explained that publicly posted content using commercial music would almost certainly not qualify as fair use.
Did you know?
Fair use is one of the most frequently misunderstood concepts in copyright law — many people believe that brief uses, educational uses, or non-commercial uses automatically qualify as fair use, when in fact each is only one of four factors courts weigh together. There is no automatic exemption for using 30 seconds of a song, no guaranteed protection for educational purposes, and no safe harbor simply because no money is being made.
