Measuring Fair Use: The Four Factors

Unfortunately, the only way to get a definitive answer on whether a particular use is a fair use is to have it resolved in federal court. Judges use four factors to resolve fair use disputes, as discussed in detail below. It’s important to understand that these factors are only guidelines that courts are free to adapt to particular situations on a case‑by‑case basis. In other words, a judge has a great deal of freedom when making a fair use determination, so the outcome in any given case can be hard to predict.

The four factors judges consider are:

the purpose and character of your use
the nature of the copyrighted work
the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and
the effect of the use upon the potential market.

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The Transformative Factor: The Purpose and Character of Your Use

In a 1994 case, the Supreme Court emphasized this first factor as being an important indicator of fair use. At issue is whether the material has been used to help create something new or merely copied verbatim into another work. When taking portions of copyrighted work, ask yourself the following questions:

Has the material you have taken from the original work been transformed by adding new expression or meaning?
Was value added to the original by creating new information, new aesthetics, new insights, and understandings?

In a parody, for example, the parodist transforms the original by holding it up to ridicule. At the same time, a work does not become a parody simply because the author models characters after those found in a famous work.

Purposes such as scholarship, research, or education may also qualify as transformative uses because the work is the subject of review or commentary.

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Determining what is transformative—and the degree of transformation—is often challenging. For example, the creation of a Harry Potter encyclopedia was determined to be “slightly transformative” (because it made the Harry Potter terms and lexicons available in one volume), but this transformative quality was not enough to justify a fair use defense in light of the extensive verbatim use of text from the Harry Potter books. (Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. v. RDR Books, 575 F.Supp.2d 513 (S.D. N.Y. 2008).)

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The Nature of the Copyrighted Work

Because the dissemination of facts or information benefits the public, you have more leeway to copy from factual works such as biographies than you do from fictional works such as plays or novels.

In addition, you will have a stronger case of fair use if you copy the material from a published work than an unpublished work. The scope of fair use is narrower for unpublished works because an author has the right to control the first public appearance of his or her expression.

The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken

The less you take, the more likely that your copying will be excused as a fair use. However, even if you take a small portion of a work, your copying will not be a fair use if the portion taken is the “heart” of the work. In other words, you are more likely to run into problems if you take the most memorable aspect of a work. For example, it would probably not be a fair use to copy the opening guitar riff and the words “I can’t get no satisfaction” from the song “Satisfaction.”

This rule—less is more—is not necessarily true in parody cases. A parodist is permitted to borrow quite a bit, even the heart of the original work, in order to conjure up the original work. That’s because, as the Supreme Court has acknowledged, “the heart is also what most readily conjures up the [original] for parody, and it is the heart at which parody takes aim.” (Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994).)

The Effect of the Use Upon the Potential Market

Another important fair use factor is whether your use deprives the copyright owner of income or undermines a new or potential market for the copyrighted work. Depriving a copyright owner of income is very likely to trigger a lawsuit. This is true even if you are not competing directly with the original work.

For example, in one case an artist used a copyrighted photograph without permission as the basis for wood sculptures, copying all elements of the photo. The artist earned several hundred thousand dollars selling the sculptures. When the photographer sued, the artist claimed his sculptures were a fair use because the photographer would never have considered making sculptures. The court disagreed, stating that it did not matter whether the photographer had considered making sculptures; what mattered was that a potential market for sculptures of the photograph existed. (Rogers v. Koons, 960 F.2d 301 (2d Cir. 1992).)

Again, parody is given a slightly different fair use analysis with regard to the impact on the market. It’s possible that a parody may diminish or even destroy the market value of the original work. That is, the parody may be so good that the public can never take the original work seriously again. Although this may cause a loss of income, it’s not the same type of loss as when an infringer merely appropriates the work. As one judge explained, “The economic effect of a parody with which we are concerned is not its potential to destroy or diminish the market for the original—any bad review can have that effect—but whether it fulfills the demand for the original.” (Fisher v. Dees, 794 F.2d 432 (9th Cir. 1986).)

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Too Small for Fair Use: The De Minimis Defense

In some cases, the amount of material copied is so small (or “de minimis”) that the court permits it without even conducting a fair use analysis. For example, in the motion picture Seven, several copyrighted photographs appeared in the film, prompting the copyright owner of the photographs to sue the producer of the movie. The court held that the photos “appear fleetingly and are obscured, severely out of focus, and virtually unidentifiable.” The court excused the use of the photographs as “de minimis” and didn’t require a fair use analysis. (Sandoval v. New Line Cinema Corp., 147 F.3d 215 (2d Cir. 1998).)

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As with fair use, there is no bright line test for determining a de minimis use. For example, in another case, a court determined that the use of a copyrighted poster for a total of 27 seconds in the background of the TV show Roc was not de minimis. What distinguished the use of the poster from the use of the photographs in the Seven case? The court stated that the poster was clearly visible and recognizable with sufficient observable detail for the “average lay observer” to view the artist’s imagery and colorful style. (Ringgold v. Black Entertainment Television, Inc., 126 F.3d 70 (2d Cir. 1997).)

The “Fifth” Fair Use Factor: Are You Good or Bad?

When you review fair use cases, you may find that they sometimes contradict one another or conflict with the rules expressed in this chapter. Fair use involves subjective judgments, often affected by factors such as a judge or jury’s personal sense of right or wrong. Despite the fact that the Supreme Court has indicated that offensiveness is not a fair use factor, you should be aware that a morally offended judge or jury may rationalize its decision against fair use.

For example, in one case a manufacturer of novelty cards parodied the successful children’s dolls the Cabbage Patch Kids. The parody card series was entitled the Garbage Pail Kids and used gruesome and grotesque names and characters to poke fun at the wholesome Cabbage Patch image. Some copyright experts were surprised when a federal court considered the parody an infringement, not a fair use. (Original Appalachian Artworks, Inc. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., 642 F.Supp. 1031 (N.D. Ga. 1986).)

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Dear Rich : How Do I Word a Copyright Disclaimer for YouTube?

Dear Rich: I’ve seen a lot of different statements posted by people at YouTube so they won’t get sued over copyright infringement. What is the best thing to write to prevent getting sued?

These statements—known in legal parlance as “disclaimers”—are intended to prevent (or at least limit) copyright infringement claims. The most common of the half-million disclaimers used at YouTube is apparently “No Copyright Intended” which—despite its ambiguous meaning—is about as effective as going 90 MPH in your car with a sign that says “No Speeding Intended.” Other disclaimers state that the user is claiming fair use. Unfortunately, claiming fair use doesn’t mean that the work qualifies as a fair use. Only a court can determine that. In truth, we don’t believe that there is really any disclaimer that would be effective in preventing a lawsuit if your video infringes someone else’s work.

So what do you say? Knowing that disclaimers won’t prevent a lawsuit, you might be able to limit damages in a lawsuit by stating something to the effect of:

“No copyright is claimed in [content copied] and to the extent that material may appear to be infringed, I assert that such alleged infringement is permissible under fair use principles in U.S. copyright laws. If you believe material has been used in an unauthorized manner, please contact the poster.”

Don’t expect this to do much—most copyright owners will bypass this and have it removed under a DMCA notice—but it may set a more sympathetic tone for you as a defendant if you find yourself responding to a lawsuit.

Does It Help to Use a Disclaimer?

A disclaimer is a statement that “disassociates” your work from the work that you have borrowed. For example, if you write an unauthorized biography of Mickey Mouse, you may include a disclaimer such as, “This book is not associated with or endorsed by the Walt Disney Company.” Will it help your position if you use a disclaimer? In close cases where the court is having a difficult time making a fair use determination, a prominently placed disclaimer may have a positive effect on the way the court perceives your use. However, generally a disclaimer by itself will not help. That is, if the fair use factors weigh against you, the disclaimer won’t make any difference. For example, in a case involving a Seinfeld trivia book, the publisher included a disclaimer that the book “has not been approved or licensed by any entity involved in creating or producing Seinfeld.” Despite the disclaimer, the court held that the use of the Seinfeld materials was an infringement, not a fair use.