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Fair Use: Factor 2: Nature

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

Factor 2: Nature of Work

The nature of the copyrighted work;

Content that is fact-based can be easier to consider for fair use than content that is very creative in its essence. Facts are testable objects and thus can be valuable for consultation in a scholarly analysis. Creative and artistic work, like photographs or paintings, is more owner-identifiable and thus may be harder to claim for intentions of fair use.

For example, quoting from a fact-based scholarly article gives you a much stronger fair use case than quoting from a novel, and showing a clip from an instructional video is a better fair use case than showing a clip from a movie.