Fair Use week, from February 25 to March 1 in 2019, is a community celebration of fair use coordinated by the Association of Research Libraries. Each day teachers, students, researchers and consumers benefit from copyrighted information because of the fair use exception in the United States copyright law.
The Fair Use Doctrine is a part of the Copyright Act of 1976 and is based on a history of judicial decisions that recognized that some unauthorized use of copyrighted materials were “fair uses.” The purpose of the fair use exception was to allow students, scholars and critics the right to reference a copyrighted work in their own scholarship, teaching, and critiques without fear of litigation.
The fair use exception contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. It also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair. The USF Libraries has created a worksheet to help you in your determination of fair use:
Fair Use/Fair Dealing Week Elsewhere:
- Fair Use Week Headquarters
- Fair Use: 12 Myths & Realities
- Day In the Life of a College Student Infographic
- Fair Use Comics: the history of fair use by Sarah Winifred Searle and Kyle K. Courtney for Fair Use Week 2017.