What Is Fair Use?

Fair use is the legal use of a portion of a work without violating the originator's copyright.

Examples of Fair Use

Using another’s work for purposes such as…

• Criticism, comment, news reporting
• Teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use)
• Scholarship
• Research

Definitions Related to Fair Use

• Create: to make or bring into existence; to produce through imaginative skill.
• Develop: to create or produce especially by deliberate effort over time.
• Produce: to cause to have existence or to happen; to give being, form, or shape to; to compose, create, or bring out by intellectual or physical effort.
• Adapt:* to rewrite a composition into a new form; to make fit (as for a specific or new use or situation) often by modification.
• Reproduce:* to present again.
• Revise:* to make a new, amended, improved, or up-to-date version of.
• Reprint:* to print again; to make a reprint of.

*“Adapt,” reproduce,” “revise,” and “reprint” require permission from the original work’s copyright holder; in the work adapted, revised, etc., you must credit the original.

Guidelines for Copying Material for Classroom/Educational Use

Because fair use is decided through the courts, no easy guidelines can spell out its use. Four factors can be used to determine fair use: the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used, and the effect of use on the potential market for the copyrighted work. See the UMUC Copyright guidelines for more information on these factors.

• UMD's Guidelines for Classroom Copying.
  Caveat: Obtain permission for materials that you will be using repeatedly for the same class/program.

• UMD's Copyright Clearance Center researches the copyright status of works in question & obtains any necessary permissions.
• AGNR letter of permission (Word doc) template, which includes template for original author’s return letter.