By Jack Lerner, Luke Hartman, and Jordin Wilcher
Cross-posted at https://ipat.law.uci.edu/fairuse2021
We are excited to celebrate Fair Use Week with a new report from the UC Irvine Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology (IPAT) Clinic: Fair Use Jurisprudence 2019–2021: A Comprehensive Review. The report presents the results of an exhaustive study of recent fair use opinions issued by US federal courts in copyright infringement cases.
Copyright covers a huge range of expressive activity and is automatic. Just about anyone who wants to do more than read, watch, or use a work relies on the doctrine of fair use in order to avoid liability for copyright infringement. The US Supreme Court has referred to fair use as a sort of safety valve that provides breathing space allowing copyright to coexist with freedom of expression. And it is an evolving doctrine; disputes concerning fair use are constantly working their way through the American legal system, but the vast majority of cases don’t make the news despite their importance to creative expression and innovation.
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