By Eduardo Loret de Mola from Berklee’s Music Business Journal, thembj.org.
Fair use has always been a contentious concept. A great number of musicians, as well as artists of other varieties, include copyrighted material in their own works through techniques such as sampling and parodying. However, many of these works do not fall under the scope of fair use. In fact, there is a lot of uncertainty regarding what constitutes fair use and what does not. A recent study by the College Art Association (CAA) found that “37 percent of artists use third-party material and that one in five avoids or abandons a project over concerns that they’re not doing it right and that number is much higher for editors and academics.”1
The principle of fair use was incorporated into the law to allow people to use portions of copyrighted materials without infringing upon the rights of the owner. According to section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act, anyone can use part of a copyrighted work as long as its use falls under one of the categories specified in the law: criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (which includes multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship or research. The expectation of this principle is that the copying of protected works has to have a transformative dimension, as indicated above, and for only a limited amount of time.
In theory, a person would not need permission from the rights owner to use the copyrighted material under the specifications of the law. However, if the copyright owner disagrees with the way a person is copying his or her work and argues that it is not fair use, then the matter would have to be settled in court or by arbitration. Still, fair use is a legitimate defense against a copyright infringement claim. In order to prove …Read the full story
Source:: Music Think Tank