What+is+Fair+Use?

Copyright for CCPS Educators

 * What is Fair Use?**

Fair Use is a judicial interpretation of copyright law which balances the needs of educators to use copyrighted materials more freely than the general public with the rights of copyright holders to control and profit from the use of their works.

Copyright law is not designed to punish teachers. It recognizes that information is the lifeblood of education and tries to find a compromise between a teacher's need to use information to educate students and a producer's right to control the use of his or her intellectual property.

That compromise is never easy or stable. As the world of information access and delivery changes over time, the compromises have to shift to keep with evolving technology.


 * How can I tell if my use is Fair Use?**

** First and foremost, Fair Use requires that the material you are using is a __legal__ copy. **

Then, although interpretation is fluid, there is a 4-prong test that has been developed to help ascertain Fair Use.
 * 1) **What is the purpose of the use ?** Is your use educational or for profit? Educational use means direct, face-to-face instruction in a classroom setting as an integral part of a program of instruction. Educational use DOES NOT mean entertainment or rewards.
 * 2) **What is the nature of the work ?** Is the work published or unpublished? Factual or creative? Fair Use favors unpublished, out of print and/or factual material.
 * 3) **What proportion of the work is being used?** The more you take, the less likely it is that your use is fair. Copyright law protects the essence or most important part of a work, despite Fair Use.
 * 4) **What effect will the use have on the market for this product ?** Will a publisher lose money if you photocopy enough copies of a book to create a class set rather than purchase them? Negative market impact will quickly nullify any Fair Use claim.


 * Are those 4 prongs all that I need to consider?** No! The concept of //**spontaneity**// underpins the whole idea of Fair Use.

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