Media Center / Copyright & Fair Use Guidelines

Media Center

Fair use is the educational exemption for copyright law. The educational exemption allows for limited reproduction and distribution for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, research, & scholarship. Before copying and distributing any work, educators should apply the 4 criteria for determining fair use:

Purpose of reproduction of work

Natureof the work being reproduced

Amount of the work being reproduced

Effect of reproduction on compensation.

For further explanation of the criteria see the following link: Fair Use Criteria Definitions

Also, this printable * Copyright Chart from Hall Davidson provides specific examples of acceptable applications of the fair use exemption for copyright.

* To view the chart in the landscape orientation, you may need to download it to your computer and then use Acrobat Reader to rotate the document. From the menu bar, click "view" and then "rotate view"

(ltaft 10/09)