MYTH: Fair Use Is Just for Critiques, Commentaries, or Parodies. Truth: Transformativeness, a key value in fair use law, can involve modifying material or putting material in a new context, or both. Fair use applies to a wide variety of purposes, not just critical ones. Using an appropriate excerpt from copyrighted material to illustrate a key idea in the course of teaching is likely to be a fair use, for example. Indeed, the Copyright Act itself makes it clear that educational uses will often be considered fair because they add important pedagogical value to referenced media objects.
Caroline Bucky-Beaver on 12 Nov 08Under the 4th Principle regarding students' use of copyrighted material the article references students' use of copyrighted music. They cannot rely on it when their goal is to establish a mood or convey an emotional tone, or to simply use a popular song to exploit its appeal. This is what I find most students doing when they are using copyrighted songs. In order to use copyrighted songs, they have to demonstrate how they have repurposed or transformed the original. I'm curious to see examples of this that meet fair use.
