Fair Use

Last week, Peter Jaszi--the nation's leading expert on the copyright doctrine of fair use--was asked to testify before Congress on fair use and whether it needed reform. His short explanation, reproduced here for everyone who didn't make it to the hearing room, shows why fair use is both flexible and reliable, given the last two decades of court decisions: Read more...

Journalists won big in a court case settled Jan. 27, affirming journalists’ fair use right to repurpose 100% of unauthorized copyrighted content, in some cases, because it serves the public good. Read more...

The visual arts communities of practice—artists, scholars, teachers, museum professionals, and more—share a common problem: confusion and misunderstanding of the nature of copyright law and the availability of fair use, according to a report by American University and issued b Read more...

By Center Director Patricia Aufderheide; Brandon Butler, Practitioner-in-Residence at the Glushko Samuelson IP Clinic, American University Washington College of Law; and Peter Jaszi, Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Clinic, American University Washington College of Law

Copyright Week is the perfect occasion to celebrate fair use, certainly the most dynamic and arguably the most important doctrine in copyright law. The last 15 or 20 years have seen a remarkable series of developments that make fair use, now more than ever, the most vital protection of the public interest in the Copyright Act. For Copyright Week, we wanted to highlight a part of the fair use landscape that, perhaps more than any other, puts fair use in the hands of practitioners who need it most: the Fair Use Best Practices movement.  Read more...

When Participant Productions launched Pivot (http://www.pivot.tv/), its partly-crowdsourced TV channel, it turned to the Center for Media and Social Impact to create its guide to good copyright behavior. CMSi, with the help of the Washington College of Law's Prof. Peter Jaszi, developed a pledge--which anyone can take (and share with students, friends and family, hint hint). Read more...