Fair Use Evaluator. What this tool can do for you: What this tool cannot do for you: Recut, Reframe, Recycle. When college kids make mashups of Hollywood movies, are they violating the law? Not necessarily, according to the latest study (PDF) on copyright and creativity from the Center and American University's Washington College of Law.
The study, Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video, by Center director Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi, co-director of the law school's Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, shows that many uses of copyrighted material in today's online videos are eligible for fair use consideration.
The study points to a wide variety of practices—satire, parody, negative and positive commentary, discussion-triggers, illustration, diaries, archiving and of course, pastiche or collage (remixes and mashups)—all of which could be legal in some circumstances. Check out this video from Chronicle.com: Unfortunately, this emerging, participatory media culture is at risk, with new industry practices to control piracy. Lessons from fashion's free culture. Kirby Ferguson: Embrace the remix. Fair Use Checklist. Fair Dealing for Media Education. The two-part test: exemptions To determine if something is Fair Dealing, a two-part test is applied. The first test is whether or not the use falls under one of the exemptions: research, private study, criticism or review, news reporting, parody and satire or education.
Research most often involves academic research but the courts have defined it more broadly to include nearly any kind of research; for instance, posting 30-second clips of songs on a website that sold digital music was determined to be fair use because it enabled consumers to do research in deciding whether or not to buy the songs. Private study is just that: the making of a single copy for your own use (for example, photocopying or hand-copying sections of a book for reference). Criticism or review includes examples such as quoting from a novel or film (in which case the "quote" might be a video clip) in a review, or quoting from an academic work in order to argue against its point. The two-part test: Fair Dealing factors.