Features of the development of modern science in the pandemic’s era: collection of scientific papers «scientia» with Proceedings of the I international Scientific and Theoretical Conference (Vol. 1)

 
US FAIR USE APPROACH AND
ITS FAVOURABLE FLEXIBILITY 
 
Fair use doctrine is embodied in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act 1976 (USCA), which 
provides that ‘the fair use of a copyrighted work for purposes such as criticism, comment, news 
reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research is not 
an infringement of copyright’.
1
Thus, this provision recognizes certain types of activities as 
examples of fair use and leaves the list of permissible purposes open.
2
Moreover, section 107 
mandates the consideration of four exclusive factors in deciding whether a particular use of the 
copyrighted work is fair, namely: ‘(1) the purpose and the character of the use, including whether 
such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the 
copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the 
copyrighted work; (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted 
work’.
3
It should be noted that factors one and four are of particular importance to evaluate fair 
use since the US Courts have emphasized them as primary indicators of fairness.
4
Factor one namely, the purpose and character of the use examines whether a particular piece 
of the copyrighted work is used in a transformative manner so as to create something new, or
merely reproduced for a commercial purpose.
5
For example, in 
Campbell
v. Acuff-Rose 
case, the 
US Supreme Court held that a parody of the song “Pretty Woman” was a fair use since it was 
considered to be a transformative use and did not affect the market for the original song.
6
Furthermore, in 
Blanch. v Koons
, pieces of a copyrighted fashion photograph was used by an artist
for his painting and it was found to be a fair use due to its transformative artistic nature and the 
commentary made on fashion.
7
Accordingly, Judge Leval has argued that copyright law is 
designed to encourage the creativity, which is represented by a “transformative” work.
8
According 
to Beebe’s case analysis, in most cases finding of a transformative use is sufficient for a court to 
decide that the action in question is fair use.
9
As regards factor four, it is aimed at protecting interests of copyright holder by testing 
whether potential market of the author is affected or undermined as a result of the use of the 
copyrighted material [4-9]. For instance, in 
Harper & Row
case, extract from unpublished 
memoirs was published by a magazine, which was found to be copyright infringement as it 
impacted on potential market and revenue coming from author’s publication rights.
10
This factor 
is considered to dominate all other factors.
11
1
U.S. Copyright Act 1976, s. 107 
2
Gluseppina D’Agostino, ‘Healing Fair Dealing – A Comparative Copyright Analysis of Canada’s Fair Dealing to 
U.K. Fair Dealing and U.S. Fair Use’ (2008) 53 McGill Journal, pp.344 
3
USCA (n9) 
4
Dnes (n2) pp.433 
5
D’Agostino (n10) pp.345 
6
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose
114 S.Ct. 1164 (1994) 
7
Blanch v. Koons 
467 F 2.d. 244 2d. Cir. (2006) 
8
Pierre N. Leval, ‘Towards a Fair Use Standard’ (1990) 103 Harvard Law Review, pp.1105 
9
Barton Beebe, ‘An Empirical Study of U.S. Copyright Fair Use Opinions’ (2008) 156 (3) University of Pennsylvania 
Law Review pp.605  accessed 6 February 2020
 
10
Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises
in 
 
D’Agostino (n10) pp.348 
11
D’Agostino (n10) pp.437 

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December 3, 2021 | Berlin, Germany | Collection of scientific papers «SCIENTIA»
 
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105
Thus, US fair use doctrine allows judges to decide whether new activities relating to 
copyrighted works should lawfully fall within the ambit of copyright protection or not.[10-14] It 
provided courts with a legal mechanism to accommodate new innovations and technological 
changes without enacting a new legislation such as data and text mining, reverse engineering and 
format-shifting of music, films and e-books.
1
According to Gowers and Hargreaves, fair use 
approach is more flexible than fair dealing as it can be adapted to new innovations and this is one 
of the reasons behind favorable environment for innovations in the US.
2
Furthermore, 
transformative element and market-impact analysis embodied in four-factor test of fair use 
doctrine contributes to the promotion of innovation and creativity by identifying and supporting 
new benefits of copyrighted work.
3
For instance, in
Perfect 10 
case, the court held that data 
framing and linking nature of Google’s image search engine was a transformative use and 
amounted to a fair use of Perfect 10’s images.
4