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Fair use is one of the exceptions in copyright which allows use of copyrighted materials without obtaining permission as long as the use can be considered fair. There is a four-factor analysis which must be applied to each use to determine whether the use is fair. Each factor is given equal weight. The goal is to achieve a balance between the rights of the copyright holder with the rights of the public. Fair use is also technologically neutral so the same analysis may be applied to any medium.

"Communication scholars need access to copyrighted material, need to make unlicensed uses of them in order to do their research, and often-especially within the United States-have the legal right to do so. But all too often they find themselves thwarted. Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for OpenCourseWare This document is a code of best practices designed to help those preparing OpenCourseWare (OCW) to interpret and apply fair use under United States copyright law."