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ENGL/COMM 402 - Publishing: Focus on Copyright and Fair Use: Copyright and Fair Use Scenarios

Fair Use Scenarios

  1.  You are a professor and you have scanned the entire text of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel "This Side of Paradise" (1920) and placed it on Desire2Learn for your students to use. Is this use okay?

  1. You make multiple copies of a pamphlet created this year and posted on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website. The pamphlet lists nutrition and health standards. Is this use permitted by copyright law?

  1. An English teacher prints a classroom handout, and includes a quotation from a book on the Grand Canyon, to show pithy writing: “…the awful heat sucked out his thinking ability like a brain vampire…”

  1. You are a self–publisher or author finishing a book on keeping kids healthy. You realize you need a cute headshot of a happy smiling teenager. You want to save a few dollars, so you find a nice photo in a women’s magazine, scan it, and use on your book cover. Copyright holder sues you. You claim Fair Use.

  1. In the documentary film, “Giuliani Time,” about Rudy Giuliani, Williams Cole used limited quotes from contemporary newspapers, magazines, and news broadcasts to illustrate Giuliani’s skill at commanding press attention. Fair use?

  1. Jonathan McIntosh creates a “remix” of Twilight and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, having Edward meet Buffy in high school. It uses clips from both shows. It came out on Youtube and was titled “Buffy vs Edward.”  He says it is a pro-feminist critique of Twilight.