Fair Use In The Electronic Age: Serving The Public Interest

The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of

authors, but "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts."

To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original

expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and

information conveyed by a work. This result is neither unfair nor

unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress

of science and art.

-- Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural

Telephone Service Co., 499 US 340, 349(1991)

The genius of United States copyright law is that, in conformance

with its constitutional foundation, it balances the intellectual

property interests of authors, publishers and copyright owners with

society's need for the free exchange of ideas. Taken together, fair

use and other public rights to utilize copyrighted works, as

confirmed in the Copyright Act of 1976, constitute indispensable

legal doctrines for promoting the dissemination of knowledge, while

ensuring authors, publishers and copyright owners appropriate

protection of their creative works and economic investments.

The fair use provision of the Copyright Act allows reproduction and

other uses of copyrighted works under certain conditions for purposes

such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching(including

multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship or research.

Additional provisions of the law allow uses specifically permitted by

Congress to further educational and library activities. The

preservation and continuation of these balanced rights in an

electronic environment as well as in traditional formats are

essential to the free flow of information and to the development of

an information infrastructure that serves the public interest.

It follows that the benefits of the new technologies should flow to

the public as well as to copyright proprietors. As more information

becomes available only in electronic formats, the public's legitimate

right to use copyrighted material must be protected. In order for

public's right of fair use must continue in the electronic era, and

these lawful uses of copyrighted works must be allowed without

individual transaction fees.

Without infringing copyright, the public has a right to expect:

to read, listen to, or view publicly marketed copyrighted material

privately, on site or remotely;

to browse through publicly marketed copyrighted material;

to experiment with variations of copyrighted material for fair use

purposes, while preserving the integrity of the original;

to make or have made for them a first generation copy for personal

use of an article or other small part of a publicly marketed

copyrighted work or a work in a library's collection for such purpose

as study, scholarship, or research; and

to make transitory copies if ephemeral or incidental to a lawful use

and if retained only temporarily.

Without infringing copyright, nonprofit libraries and other Section

108 libraries, on behalf of their clientele, should be able:

to use electronic technologies to preserve copyrighted materials in

their collections;

to provide copyrighted materials as part of electronic reserve room

service;

to provide copyrighted materials as part of electronic interlibrary

loan service; and

to avoid liability, after posting appropriate copyright notices, for

the unsupervised actions of their users.

Users, libraries, and educational institutions have a right to

expect:

that the terms of licenses will not restrict fair use or other lawful

library or educational uses;

that U.S. government works and other public domain materials will be

readily available without restrictions and at a government price not

exceeding the marginal cost of dissemination; and

that rights of use for nonprofit education apply in face-to-face

teaching and in transmittal or broadcast to remote locations where

educational institutions of the future must increasingly reach their

students.

Carefully constructed copyright guidelines and practices have emerged

for the print environment to ensure that there is a balance between

the rights of users and those of authors,publishers, and copyright

owners. New understandings, developed by all stakeholders, will help

to ensure that this balance is retained in a rapidly changing

electronic environment. This working statement addresses lawful uses

of copyrighted works in both the print and electronic environments. <<

This is from:

http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/fairuse.html