How The Copyright Law is Corresponding to The Concept of Fair Use

Abstract

This paper discusses copyright law, mainly within the context of fair use. The primary elements that decide what is protected under fair use is covered, citing relation to the case AV. Ex. Rel. Vanderhye v. iParadims, LLC. The effect of the transformative nature of a new work, in addition to the importance of market impact being a factor when using the fair use defense is discussed as well.

Copyright Law and Fair Use

Copyright law, one of the main types of intellectual property law, is important to understand. In order to understand it, we must know the primary goals of copyright law. Additionally, the elements that make up the defense known as fair use of copyrighted material must be known as well. These factors have some interplay with other portions of fair use as well, namely the effect on other fair use factors if a new work is deemed transformative in relation to the original work. The factor of market impact is also important as well when considering the fair use defense, which will be discussed with the other topics listed above.

Copyright Law

Copyright is very important to intellectual property, but it has a couple of main goals in mind. One, as cited by Criag (2013), is "to ensure than 'authors [have] the opportunity to realize rewards in order to encourage them to create'" (p. 30). This is reinforced by a paper containing a statement from Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, who says that copyright law is created from a Constitutional goal to promote useful arts and the progress of science (COPYRIGHT POLICY, CREATIVITY, AND INNOVATION IN THE DIGITAL ECONOMY, 2013, p. i). It can then be inferred that the other goal of copyright law is to protect works in order to achieve the goal above. However, there must be a balance and limitation to copyright law. This limitation comes in the form of the fair use defense.

Fair Use

The fair use defense, according to Craig (2013), is a limitation to the exclusive rights of copyright holders, and has four factors as set by Congress to determine whether or not it applies to a situation (p. 28). As written by Craig, these factors are: "The purpose and character of the use; The nature of the copyrighted work; The amount of work used; and the economic impact of the use" (p. 28).

In the case AV. Ex. Rel. Vanderhye v. iParadims, LLC., the third factor - the amount of work used - brings up an interesting issue. According to Craig, iParadims, LLC used the entirety of the plaintiff's claimed copyrighted works in their program that detects plagiarism (p. 30). Craig continues to explain that even though using more of a work may decrease the likelihood of fair use being a viable defense, the use in this case was transformative (p. 30). This means that the use of these documents was used in a purpose different from the original intended use. In this case, this would put more emphasis on the three other factors in determining fair use.

Another important factor of fair use is the impact on the market. Recall earlier that one of the main goals of copyright law was to basically get rewards for creating, which encourages progress and more creation. If an alleged case of copyright infringement were looking to be protected under fair use, causing a negative impact on the market and causing monetary loss for the original copyrighted work would be a conflict to the aforementioned copyright goal. Therefore, the impact on the market is very important, as causing losses to a copyright holder should not be protected under fair use, as it would undermine one of the fundamental goals of copyright law.

Conclusion

While copyright has a main goal of providing incentive to promote creation while protecting the holder of those rights, there are some situations in which protection it can be limited. The one of the limitations is addressed in the fair use defense, which would protect a party from potential copyright infringement - as long as it fell under certain criteria. One factor, namely the amount of content used, is not necessarily an explicit measure of whether or not fair use is a viable defense, as the copyrighted mateiral's use may be transformative. Lastly, the impact of an infringement on the market of a copyright is important in determining fair use, as protecting actions that result in monetary losses would undermine a fundamental principle of copyright law.