Fair Use

Copyright law, especially Fair Use can be a complicated and confusing issue to navigate.  The following resources have been collected to help librarians and other interested parties determine when fair use of copyrighted materials is allowed.

Fair Use Myths and Facts Infographic, Association of Research Libraries

Recent Legal Decisions Concerning Fair Use;

• Second Circuit Affirms Fair Use in Google Books Case, ARL Policy Blog, October 16, 2015. The Second Circuit held that the Google Library Project's copying of books and the display of snippets is transformative and fair use.

• Unbeaten Streak, Inside Higher Education, June 2014 - HathiTrust, a digital library consortium, won a case that grants them the legal right to digitize copyrighted works for accessibility purposes.

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries, ARL and  American University. January 2012. This is a code of best practices in fair use devised specifically by and for the academic and research library community. It enhances the ability of librarians to rely on fair use by documenting the considered views of the library community about best practices in fair use, drawn from the actual practices and experience of the library community itself.

The following resources were collected by the Center for Social Media at American University.

• The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education

• Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video

• Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Open CourseWare

• Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Scholarly Research in Communication

• Documentary Filmmakers' Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use

• Society for Cinema and Media Studies' Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use in Teaching for Film and Media Educators

• Set of Principles in Fair Use for Journalism

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Georgia State Case Resources
Want to find out more about this case? Visit the ICPL Georgia State Case Resources page for links to helpful articles and blogs related to the Georgia State copyright case (Cambridge University Press et al. v. Patton et al.). This lawsuit brought by several publishers against Georgia State University involves the use of copyrighted materials in e-reserves in higher education, but the impact of the case and its potential results may be far more reaching.