Fair Use Case Analysis Paper

The growth of distance education programs has increased the need for instructors and students to have access to electronic versions of copyrighted materials. Although the materials are available, instructors and students must be judicious in their use and distribution of the works protected by copyright law. The copyright law provides protection to authors against others using their creations without their permission by granting authors with exclusive rights to the use and distribution of their works. However, exceptions to the law were introduced through the implementation of the fair use doctrine. Fair use provides specific guidelines for legal use of copyrighted works. Unfortunately, ambiguity on how to apply the law and exceptions continue to challenge the end users, particularly in distance education. This paper will compare and contrast two scenarios in reference to the application of the fair use doctrine. The analysis will carefully review the facts provided by the scenarios and apply the fair use guidelines to determine if the exceptions of the law support the use of the copyrighted materials. The two scenarios being analyzed are:

Scenario 1: A staff member

Neal (2011) asserts, “fair use is a more general and ambiguous exception included in the law as a defense against claims of inappropriate uses of a work” (p. 169). Courts apply four measures to determine if the use of a work is protected by the exceptions established by the fair use doctrine. These are: (1) the purpose and character of the use, (2) nature of the work, (3) the amount of the material used, and (4) the impact on the market (U.S. Copyright Office, circular 21, p. 2). These measures are carefully reviewed and applied on a case-by-case basis when an author accuses a user of committing copyright