Fair Use: The Secrets No One Tells You
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About this ebook
The “secrets” identified and discussed in this book are actually aspects of fair use that are either not widely recognized or not widely discussed. Understanding these facets of the fair use doctrine will help readers understand this often complex and heavily nuanced part of copyright law at a new level, thereby empowering readers in their ability to apply and rely on fair use in their daily lives.
Fair use in copyright has always been a necessary tool for educators and librarians. However, fair use has never been more important than it is today, as we move more and more fully into an electronic information environment. We – society as a whole, not only librarians and educators – must increasingly rely on fair use, because we so often have no specific law addressing the ever-changing situations we encounter on a daily basis.
The greater your fair use skills are, the more likely you are to take advantage of this right that has been granted to you by copyright law, and the more your students and users will benefit from it, as the law itself intends.
Although fair use is available to anyone, this book is written with educators (at all levels) and librarians in mind. That said, anyone who relies on fair use, or simply wants to understand it at a deeper level, will benefit from reading the book, so don’t be deterred by the repeated references to the education environment.
This book is not a general guide to fair use. Rather, in this book, the author presents multiple points about fair use that she believes are necessary to grasp in order to have a robust understanding and mastery of fair use, but that are most often overlooked or misunderstood.
Gretchen McCord
Gretchen McCord is an attorney and educator specializing in copyright law, privacy law, and legal issues related to social media. In addition to providing legal services, she offers a variety of training services in these areas, both face-to-face and online. Her practice focuses on assisting educational institutions, libraries, small businesses, and non-profit entities in transitioning into the ever-changing digital world. She writes, speaks, and teaches extensively on the role and application of copyright in higher education and libraries and has achieved a national reputation within those communities as a copyright expert.Gretchen began down this road in the 1990’s, as an academic librarian at the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of Houston. Working in libraries during the early years of the modern Internet, Gretchen became increasingly interested in the developing legal issues surrounding the Internet and digital information. She decided to pursue this interest by studying law and entered the University of Texas School of Law in 1998.After earning her J.D., Gretchen spent six years at the international law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski, L.L.P. followed by 2 1⁄2 years at the prestigious intellectual property boutique of WongCabello. In 2010, she decided to follow her dreams and left firm life behind to open her own practice.Gretchen received her B.A. from Rice University and M.S.I.S. from the University of North Texas. She received her J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law in 2001 and is licensed to practice law in the State of Texas. While in law school, Gretchen served as Chief Articles Editor of the Texas Intellectual Property Law Journal and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Texas Journal of Women and the Law. During law school, she also interned for the Texas Supreme Court and the Senate Jurisprudence Committee of the Texas Legislature and worked for the Texas Library Association as a legislative assistant.Gretchen currently serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the Freedom to Read Foundation’s Board of Trustees, Secretary of the Amigos Library Services Board of Directors, and member of the American Library Association Legislative Subcommittee on Copyright. Her previous activities include serving on the City of Austin Library Commission, as President of the Friends of Libraries & Archives of Texas, and as President of the Texas Library Association in 2005-2006. She remains an active member of both TLA and ALA. She is an alumna of the Snowbird Leadership Institute and the TALL Texans Leadership Institute. She is also involved in issues of sustainability and responsible growth and currently chairs the central Texas based Groups United to Advocate Responsible Development.For twenty years, Gretchen has written and spoken extensively on copyright and privacy law, as well as other related issues. She is the author of, among other publications, the books Fair Use: The Secrets No One Tells You (available through SmashWords), What You Need to Know about Privacy Law: A Guide for Librarians and Educators (available on Amazon) and Copyright in Cyberspace 1 and 2: Questions and Answers for Librarians. Gretchen periodically adjuncts Masters-level courses about legal issues for information professionals at various institutions, including the University of Texas School of Information.Gretchen has lived in the Austin, Texas, area since 1998 and cannot imagine living elsewhere. She enjoys working on her rural property in Bastrop County, “kicker” dancing with her Tucson-raised husband, entertaining friends, and feeding treats to her thirty chickens.
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Fair Use - Gretchen McCord
Fair Use: The Secrets No One Tells You
Gretchen McCord
Copyright © 2014 by Gretchen McCord.
Smashwords Edition
For permission for uses beyond those allowed under fair use or other portions of copyright law, or for questions about permission, please contact Digital Information Law.
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information regarding copyright law. However, nothing in this book is intended to constitute legal advice, and nothing in this book should be considered legal advice. If legal counsel or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent attorney should be sought. Of necessity, neither the author nor Digital Information Law makes any warranties or representations concerning the information contained in this book or the use to which it is put.
Digital Information Law
P.O. Box 162052
Austin, TX 78716
www.digitalinfolaw.com
Contact us: editor@digitalinfolaw.com
Follow us: @GMcCordLaw
Like and follow us: www.facebook.com/digital.information.law
Link us: www.linkedin.com/in/gretchenmccord
Contents
Preface
Introduction: About this book
Copyright Act of 1976: Fair Use
Secret #1: The key word is use.
Secret #2: Trends come and go.
Secret #3: Courts love transformative uses … so far.
Secret #4: No one factor decides the entire case.
Secret #5: Fair use helps copyright owners as much as it does users of copyrighted works.
Secret #6: In application, educators and librarians often conflate fair use with other issues.
Secret #7: The academy and libraries fear fair use.
Secret #8: Many lawyers don’t really get
fair use, especially from the perspective of educators.
Secret #9: Risk tolerance is directly proportionate to provision of valuable information.
Secret #10: Copyright policies can be a powerful tool.
BONUS Secret! Secret #11: War has been declared against fair use.
Additional Resources
About the Author
Preface
How we got here
Has anyone checked out the W3? It seems clunky. Do you think it’s going to last?
It was 1992, and the Internet was upon us. Digital bulletin boards, Veronica, and Gopher rocked our world. Someone on a library-related bulletin board was asking if the World Wide Web would last.
And then it was 1993. The world was, very suddenly, a completely different place, though very few people understood just how different. It was in 1993 that the World Wide Web protocols were given to the public domain; Mosaic, the first inline browser, was released, also in the public domain; InterNIC was created to manage domain name allocation; and web traffic grew by a rate of 341,634%. Hobbes’ Internet Timeline 11; PewResearch Internet Project, World Wide Web Timeline.
Change on such a massive level at such a dizzying pace is bound to create confusion, and the birth of the modern World Wide Web was no exception.
I was a baby librarian,
having earned my M.S. in Information Science in 1992. I served as a librarian in university libraries during the 1990’s, just as the World Wide Web exploded onto the scene and forever changed the way we create, communicate, share, and even think about information.
I was entranced with what everyone seemed to view as a strange, brand-new, and apparently rules-free world. I saw librarians and professors on electronic bulletin boards freaking out because no law addressed this new world and they didn’t know to what