Members of the UC community rely on the “fair use” provision of US copyright law  every day when sharing articles or images with their students, or when quoting or excerpting others’ works to create their own scholarship. Fair use allows for limited copying of copyrighted works without the permission of the copyright owner. Under certain conditions, copyrighted works may be used for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship or research.  Colleges and universities across the country began celebrating “Fair Use Week” in 2014 in order to explain, celebrate, and promote fair use.

Three UC campuses are listed among this year’s participating institutions: UC Irvine, UCLA and UCSF.

• The UC Irvine Library maintains a copyright and fair use guide.
• The UCLA Library created a Fair Use Week postcard: “6 Figures Who Helped Make the World Safe for Students and Scholars; Or, a Nineteenth-century Judge, Twentieth-century Religious Fundamentalist, Photographer, Musicians, and Animals Walked into a Courtroom…and the Rest Is Legal History.”
• The UCSF Library is hosting a webinar and answering fair use questions from UCSF students and faculty.

More information about fair use is available at the UC Copyright site’s pages defining fair use, discussing fair use in the classroom, and answering frequently asked questions about use of copyrighted works. For more information about Fair Use Week, go to fairuseweek.org.

Tags: Copyright