FAIR USE

United States Code, Title 17, Section 107

"Fair Use" describes the condition where limited use of copyrighted material is allowed without obtaining express permission from the rights holder. There are four factors when determining "fair use" of copyrighted items:

• the purpose of the use - used to teach or create something new OR used for commercial purposes
• the nature of the copyrighted work - fiction OR non-fiction
• the amount of the work used - small portion OR entire work
• the effect of the use on the market for the copyrighted work - labeled by the Supreme Court as "the single most important element of fair use"

Fair use guidelines are recommendations. Fair use decisions are made on individual works and therefore are more thoroughly defined through case law.

Deciding if what you want to do with what you wish to use falls within the Fair Use can be difficult. Below are some links to checklists and evaluators. They might help you with this decision. To be safe, if it has an option to print the results, do so, and tuck them away with your records. Then you can file it with your materials to show that you did your best to follow the law based on the expertise and advise of organizations that should know.