Fair Use of Copyrighted Material

Lets face it. The Copyright Law is definitely one of the most complicated laws. And apart from being one which is terribly difficult to decipher, it is also one which can attract a pretty hefty lawsuit from someone who believes in ruthlessly protecting his intellectual property. Hence with all the money that one person has sued another for because the latter copied something very similar to the original creation of the former, one needs to be pretty wary and careful when flirting with copyrighted stuff. Of course, there is the fair use clause in there, which is supposed to help out those mired in this copyright quandary.

How to Use Copyrighted Material

As you all know, the person creating any creative material has the right to copyright it, which means that he pretty much stamps his authority on the work in question and makes sure that no one other than himself can use his works for commercial benefit. Or at least, that's the objective the rule-makers had in mind when they came up with this particular legislation: to protect the works and the interests of the person from frauds, plagiarism and others who wish to use his material without the permission of the creator, for their own monetary gain.

Of course, while all this sounds absolutely dandy in favor of the creator of the materials, the Copyright Law does not ensure full exclusivity of the right of usage to the creator. This is where the very ambiguous and contentious fair use clause comes in. You see, while the Copyright Act is aimed at protecting the creator of creative material from unscrupulous people who wish to use his material for commercial purposes, the fair use clause does not protect the copyrighted content from being used for non-commercial purposes. So the fair use of copyrighted material clause is inserted in the Copyright Act, which lays down the cases in which the material can be used fairly, without having to worry about being sued by the creator for abuse of his copyright.

Now of course, when it comes to legislation, one can never be too careful because of the ambiguity of it all. So while these cases are generally considered to be fair use, you can't help but be a little bit careful before using it. Obtaining the permission to use copyrighted material from the creator is the best way of using it, and simply citing it does not amount to fair use. With that in mind, let us see the common cases where using someone's copyrighted material comes under the purview of the clause.

• Criticism and Comment: Quoting copyrighted material seems to have a pretty unanimous thumbs up if the purpose for which it is used is for comment, criticism or review. One can quote copyrighted material for making a point in a wholly unrelated situation, with of course, the citation of the source. Even in the case of research and scholarship, the material can be quoted without any trouble.
• News Reports: An interesting instance of fair use of copyrighted material is in case of news reporting, where the reporter can quote it. So while this can be considered to be commercial use of the copyrighted material (for the newspaper/news channel), it still comes under fair use.
• Non Profit Education: Since it is non-profit, and by that we mean that the teacher or the institution has no intention of making commercial benefit from the use of the copyrighted material, the material can be used for non-profit education, where only the student stands to benefit by gaining knowledge.
• Parody: One little clause in the fair use of copyrighted material which is sure to irk the copyright holder is that his work can be used to mimic or otherwise make fun of him or his work publicly. Ironic, but if one chooses to use the copyrighted work in an act of parody, it still amounts to fair use.

If you have any doubt about whether your use is fair or not, ask your self two questions: 1). Do you intend to copy the material or create something new? And 2). Do you intend your copied material to compete with the source? If you intend on simply copying and are commercially competing with the source, then it cannot be fair use.