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Fair Use: Home

In some cases, I don’t actually need to ask for permission to use others’ content?!

What is in this guide?

Publishing. Presenting. Educating. Citing.

Fair use can apply to usage of others' content in any of these academic work scenarios, yet its rules for use are very subjective, because it depends on each individual circumstance for use. Is it legal? It can be. Is it lazy? It shouldn't be. Is it straightforward? It isn't.

This guide explains what fair use is and provides example scenarios and analysis resources to help you evaluate whether fair use can be acceptably applied for your own circumstances.

Many of the examples in the following pages are taken from the "Fair Use and Copyright for Online Education" guide by Andrée Rathemacher, Julia Lovett, and Angel Ferria of the University of Rhode Island Libraries, available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Guide Contents:

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Scholarly Communications Librarian

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Anne Gilliland
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Use this Guide

Suggested (but not required) citation: “Fair Use” by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is licensed under CC BY 4.0