The doctrine of fair use included in section 107 of the copyright law provides for limited use of copyrighted works for educational and research purposes without obtaining permission from the work’s owner for the purpose of criticism, comment, news, reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research.
Fair use is a set of broad guidelines rather than explicit rules.
The final determination depends on a balance and does not rely solely on any one factor. The courts can consider these four factors flexibly, along with additional factors. The burden of proving fair use falls on the user of the copyrighted material.
In determining whether any given “use” is “fair” the four non-exclusive factors must be considered:
How to determine if a use is 'fair'
There are several tools available that assist with determining how 'fair' a use may be.
The Code of Best Practices developed by the Center for Media & Social Impact at American University in partnership with major associations provides professionals, educators, artists, libraries, and the public with a set of principles addressing best practices in the fair use of copyrighted materials. They describe how fair use can be invoked and implemented when using copyrighted materials in scholarship, teaching, museums, archives, and in the creation of creative works. Visit the Center's website.
CODES (published by Center for Media and Social Impact - list):
Codes for Teaching/ Education
Other Guidelines: