Fair use is a legal principle that provides certain limitations on copyrighted materials. It is important to realize that there are no bright lines and assessment of whether or not an intended use is a fair use requires a thoughtful analysis of the context and intentions that underlie that use. As illustrative examples, under fair use, a teacher or researcher is allowed a rather limited amount of copying without the copyright owner’s permission for such purposes as:
- criticism
- comment
- news reporting
- teaching
These are not the only potential fair uses, but they do apply to many of the activities in which faculty engage.