Legal Disclaimer
This guide is not intended to replace the advice of legal counsel. The content of this guide is meant to be informative, but does not constitute legal advice. If you have further questions about copyright in your specific situation, please seek appropriate legal counsel.
Fair Use
"Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that may qualify as fair use." Source: Copyright.gov
- Fair Use BasicsA brief, colorful guide for educators.
Open Educational Resources
- Open Education Resources (OER)TSU's OER guide will help you find quality OER with Creative Commons licensing. Most OER can be legally reused, reformatted, and remixed to fit your course objectives.
Fair Use Guidelines - Four Factors
"This “fair use” provision of copyright law doesn’t provide hard and fast rules to tell you whether a use qualifies as fair. Instead, the unique facts regarding a use lead you to a reasoned conclusion. Your evaluation should weigh four factors:
1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes: If your use is for teaching at a nonprofit educational institution, this is a factor favoring fair use. The scale tips further in favor of fair use if access is restricted to your students.
2. Nature of copyrighted work: Is the work fact-based, published, or out-of-print? These factors weigh in favor of fair use.
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole: Using a small portion of a whole work would weigh toward fairness. But sometimes it may be fair to use an entire work (such as an image) if it is needed for your instructional purpose.
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work: A use is more likely to be fair if it does not harm the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. But if it does, this could weigh more heavily against fair use than the other factors.
Source: Know Your Copy Rights, Association of Research Libraries
Am I Protected by Fair Use?
- Copyright Exceptions for Instructors ToolAnswer a few questions about your proposed use of copyrighted material to determine whether you'll be a savvy rule-follower or a criminal.
- Fair Use EvaluatorThe American Library Association's interactive tool.