Educational Fair Use
The "fair use" provision of the copyright law allows for limited reproduction and distribution of published works without permission for such purposes as criticism, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research.
What are the Fair Use Rights for Users
The fair use provision of the copyright law allows the making of copies for "purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research."Fair Use requires the consideration of four factors:
- What is the character of the use? Non-profit vs. Commercial
- What is the nature of the work to be used? Mostly Facts vs. Original Works
- How much of the work will you use? Small Part vs. Nearly All
- What effect would this use have on the market for the original if the use were widespread? None vs. Destroy Commercial Sales
Fair Use includes choices tending toward non-profit, mostly facts, small part, and no effect on sales.
- Educational Fair Use Guidelines
- Educational Fair Use Guidelines. U.S. Copyright Office. U.S. Copyright Law—Title 17 Sec. 107
- Fair use as defined by law provides the exception to copyright and allows educators, journalists, and researchers to use small portions of copyrighted materials without acquiring permission. Section 107 contains the official guidelines.
- Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians (U. S. Copyright Law-Title 17 Section 108) [PDF]
- Includes information dealing with the reproduction of copyrighted works for
- Teaching in educational institutions at all levels; and
- Libraries & archives for purposes of study, research, interlibrary exchanges, and archival preservation.
- The University of Texas Office of General Counsel Copyright Management Center
- Outstanding "fair use" site for academics created by Georgia Harper, J.D. and "fair use" guru.
- Stanford University Libraries Copyright and Fair Use
- Another outstanding "fair use" site. Logical design of web page makes it easy to get to specific information.
- University of Georgia Libraries
- The Attorney General's Office of the state of Georgia gives a legal and liberal opinion of "fair use".
- CONTU
- Conference on New Technologies Use produced the "Guidelines for Photocopying under Interlibrary Loan Arrangements". The Cal Poly Library and other CSU Libraries use these guidelines.
- CONFU--Conference on Fair Use Guidelines (not adopted) 1996
- This Conference on Fair Use created guidelines for academics to follow. Staying within these guidelines ensures that one is within "fair use" and should not be sued; however, many thought that the guidelines were too restrictive. Universities and libraries were among the groups that rejected the CONFU guidelines.
