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A Tool That Removes Copyrighted Works Is Not a Substitute for Fair Use: The Challenges and Opportuni



Broadly speaking, one can copyright any original work of authorship that can be "fixed in any tangible medium of expression," such as written on paper, or encoded on disk or tape, or recorded on film. This includes fiction and nonfiction writings, poetry, musical compositions (words and music alike), sound recordings, photographs, paintings and drawings, sculpture, architectural works, databases, audiovisual works such as movies, and multimedia works such as those on compact discs. Computer programs can be copyrighted, and almost always are. Unless a program is clearly denoted "freeware," you should assume it is subject to copyright protection.


Fair use is the right to use a copyrighted work under certain conditions without permission of the copyright owner. The doctrine helps prevent a rigid application of copyright law that would stifle the very creativity the law is designed to foster. It allows one to use and build upon prior works in a manner that does not unfairly deprive prior copyright owners of the right to control and benefit from their works. Together with other features of copyright law like the idea/expression dichotomy discussed above, fair use reconciles the copyright statute with the First Amendment.




A Tool That Removes Copyrighted Works Is Not a Substitute for Fair Use




Other factors that sometimes weigh in the analysis of the first fair use factor include whether the use in question is a reasonable and customary practice and whether the putative fair user has acted in bad faith or denied credit to the author of the copyrighted work.


The two main considerations are whether the work is published or unpublished and how creative the work is. Unpublished works are accorded more protection than published ones, as the author has a strong right to determine whether and when his or her work will be made public. The fact that a previously published work is out of print may tend to favor fair use, since the work is not otherwise available.


Works that are factual and less creative are more susceptible of fair use than imaginative and highly creative works. This is in keeping with the general principle that copyright protects expression rather than ideas or facts.


Use that adversely affects the market for the copyrighted work is less likely to be a fair use. This ties back to the first factor, and the question whether the putative fair use supplants or substitutes for the copyrighted work. The fact that a use results in lost sales to the copyright owner will weigh against fair use. Moreover, courts have instructed that one must look at the likely impact on the market should the use in question become widespread; the fourth factor may weigh against fair use even if little market harm has yet occurred.


When the Copyright Act of 1976 was being enacted, there was extensive debate about photocopying of copyrighted material for educational and scholarly purposes. Congress declined to adopt a specific exemption for such photocopying, and instead left this to be addressed under the fair use doctrine. Section 107 provides that, if the traditional criteria are met, fair use can extend to reproduction of copyrighted material for purposes of classroom teaching. The difficulty comes in applying those criteria. Recognizing that difficulty, the House Judiciary Subcommittee urged representatives of copyright owners and educational institutions to work out a set of specific guidelines, and the resulting guidelines were included in the House Report on the Copyright Act of 1976.


The following are some general measures that, while not substituting for the four factor fair use test, will tend to assist a finding of fair use when copyrighted material is made available on a course website:


Apart from fair use, the Copyright Act contains a special provision, Section 110(1), that allows teachers to perform or display a copyrighted work, either live or recorded, "in the course of face-to-face teaching activities . . . in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction." Thus, you can use sound recordings, live performances, readings, films or videotapes, slides or any other performance or display of copyrighted works without restriction and without permission, so long as you are teaching students in a classroom or similar place such as a studio. The only exception is that you may not use a film or videotape that you have reason to believe is an illegally made copy.


For example, in one case an artist used a copyrighted photograph without permission as the basis for wood sculptures, copying all elements of the photo. The artist earned several hundred thousand dollars selling the sculptures. When the photographer sued, the artist claimed his sculptures were a fair use because the photographer would never have considered making sculptures. The court disagreed, stating that it did not matter whether the photographer had considered making sculptures; what mattered was that a potential market for sculptures of the photograph existed. (Rogers v. Koons, 960 F.2d 301 (2d Cir. 1992).)


Creative Commons is a global nonprofit organization that enablessharing and reuse of creativity and knowledge through the provision offree legal tools. Our legal tools help those who want to encourage reuseof their works by offering them for use under generous, standardizedterms; those who want to make creative uses of works; and those who wantto benefit from this symbiosis. Our vision is to help others realize thefull potential of the internet. CC has affiliates all over the worldwho help ensure our licenses work internationally and who raiseawareness of our work.


Although Creative Commons is best known for its licenses, our workextends beyond just providing copyright licenses. CC offers other legaland technical tools that also facilitate sharing and discovery ofcreative works, such as CC0, a public domaindedication for rights holders who wish to put their work into the publicdomain before the expiration of copyright, and the Public DomainMark, a tool for marking a work that is in the worldwide publicdomain. Creative Commons licenses and tools were designed specificallyto work with the web, which makes content that is offered under theirterms easy to search for, discover, and use.


No, CC does not collect content or track licensed material. However,CC builds technical tools that help the public search for and use workslicensed under our licenses and other legal tools, and many others havebuilt such tools as well. CC Search is one tooldeveloped by CC to help the public discover works offered under CreativeCommons licenses on the internet via CC-aware search engines andrepositories.


The public domain of copyright refers to the aggregate of those worksthat are not restricted by copyright within a given jurisdiction. A workmay be part of the public domain because the applicable term ofcopyright has expired, because the rights holder surrendered copyrightin the work with a tool like CC0, or because thework did not meet the applicable standards for copyrightability.


The licenses grant permission for reuse in any situation thatrequires permission under copyright. There are many ways in whichCC-licensed work works and even all rights reserved works can be reusedwithout permission. This includes usesthat are fair uses, for example.


If you want to use third-party copyrighted material for online instruction, you believe that your intended use does not qualify as fair use, and you have determined that the University of Rhode Island does not already have a license to use this material for your purpose, then you may seek permission from the rights holder. There is often a fee involved.


Among the bundle of rights that constitute copyright is the right of reproduction and distribution. Thus, faculty and staff may freely copy and distribute works to which they hold the copyright, such as lecture notes, answer keys, tests, and the like. Throughout these guidelines, copyrighted materials refers solely to works to which someone else holds the copyright.


The issue of fair use often arises with respect to the use of copyrighted works in an educational environment. Fair use provides a defense to copyright infringement for limited purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, and teaching. Not all educational uses of copyrighted material automatically qualify as a fair use.


There are a number of factors that must be considered before a defense of fair use can apply. These factures include: (i) the purpose and character of the use, (ii) the nature of the copyrighted work, (iii) the amount of the copyrighted work used, (iv) and the effect of the use on the potential market value of the copyrighted work[2].


In addition to copyrighted works, teachers and school districts should review any third party trademarks, service marks, or logos that may be posted to their website and ensure similar permissions have been obtained for their use. Use of the trademark, service mark, or logo of another without their permission in a manner that implies any affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement of the school district by the trademark owner may constitute infringement.


Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests of copyright holders with the public interest in the wider distribution and use of creative works by allowing as a defense to copyright infringement claims certain limited uses that might otherwise be considered infringement.[1] Unlike "fair dealing" rights that exist in most countries with a British legal history, the fair use right is a general exception that applies to all different kinds of uses with all types of works and turns on a flexible proportionality test that examines the purpose of the use, the amount used, and the impact on the market of the original work.


The 1710 Statute of Anne, an act of the Parliament of Great Britain, created copyright law to replace a system of private ordering enforced by the Stationers' Company. The Statute of Anne did not provide for legal unauthorized use of material protected by copyright. In Gyles v Wilcox,[2] the Court of Chancery established the doctrine of "fair abridgement", which permitted unauthorized abridgement of copyrighted works under certain circumstances. Over time, this doctrine evolved into the modern concepts of fair use and fair dealing. Fair use was a common-law doctrine in the U.S. until it was incorporated into the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. 107. 2ff7e9595c


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