Copyright Fair Use

When it comes to copyrighted material of any type, there are many facts that you will want to educate yourself on and many facts that you should know. When it comes to Fair Use and copyrighted materials, Fair Use allows the public to be able to use copyrighted materials freely for purposes such as criticism and/or commentary reasons. If you were going to criticize an author on a book that you've recently read, you would have the freedom to copy a portion of the author's copyrighted material to do so, without having to go to the author and ask them personally for their permission.

There is a downside to this however and that would be if you and the copyright owner of the material would happen to disagree with what your personal interpretation of the Fair Use was. If a dispute should arise between you and the author, the dispute would then need to be settled or resolved by using arbitrators or in the court system. If the copied material should be found to not be a fair use, you could very well be found guilty in infringing on their rights over their copyrighted material. This of course would result in you being held liable for damages due the owner of the copyrighted material.

There are several rules that are used in the determining of Fair Use. An example of one of these rules would be if the owner of the copyrighted material was to lose out on money if you in fact earned any income from the copied material in question.

There are many materials available for your use to educate yourself on the different rules of Fair Use. Factors considered in measuring Fair Use are: The Transformative Factor, The Nature of the Copyrighted Work, The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken, The Effect of the Use Upon the Potential Market and The "Fifth" Fair Use Factor.

There are also several different types of Fair Use cases you might want to consider, which are: cases involving text, artwork and audiovisual cases, Internet cases, music cases and parody cases.

As you can see, laws protecting copyright and the Fair Use of copyright can get very technical. It would be wise for you to do in-depth research if you think there might be the slightest possibility of infringing on another persons copyrighted material, whether it be in a book you have written, in a song you have written, artwork that you have created or material that you have decided to place online. It is always better to be safe now than to be sorry later on.

You would also not want another person to infringe on something you have the copyright to. After all, you will have more than likely put a lot of time and a lot of effort into your material. Having the assurance that what you have created is protected gives peace of mind. Fair Use can work for the good, for all parties involved as well as keep each user of the material honest.