Exceptions and limitations to Copyright
Exceptions mean that certain copyright works can be used without permissions from the copyright owner, under limited circumstances.
These include:
- Use of works which are in the public domain: i.e. works in which copyright protection has expired, the owner has put them in the public domain, or they simply are not valid to get copyright protection.
- Licensed works: these are works for which permission has been sought and granted by the copyright owner for use in a specific way.
- Openly licensed works: e.g. works licenced under Creative Commons licences which do not require any permissions to use or share, as long as the user abides by the conditions of the six specific licences https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/
- Fair Use or fair dealing: Fair dealing is usually a matter for courts to determine. To fall under this exception, one needs to ensure that the copyright works they used are in very small limited portions under the following categories: for private study, research, teaching, criticism, review, comment, parody, satire or pastiche and news reporting. Excessive copying or use exceeding the four fair use factors is an infringement of copyright.
The four standard factors you can use to check whether your use is fair and thus not needing any permissions are:
- Purpose of the use – i.e educational or research
- Amount of work used - should be a very limited portion and not the whole work
- Nature of the work used – better to use factual than non-factual works; better to use published than non-published works.
- Economic effect – your use should not affect the ability of the owner of the work to monetize it.
Please contact the Copyright Office if you need help checking whether your use is fair.
