The Savvy Technologist

Teaching fair use

On the Media from May 19, 2006 had a segment entitled “Fair Use Follies” that attempted to highlight some of the challenges faced by documentary filmmakers who are finding it increasingly difficult to decide when their use of copyrighted work constitutes fair use. It was an interesting discussion, and one of the speakers led me to the Duke University Center for the Study of the Public Domain.

The CSPD produced a comic book called “Tales from the Public Domain: BOUND BY LAW?” that makes a great introduction to the fair use doctrine. It’s focused mostly on filmmaking, but the principles will apply to a variety of creative works. I made copies for the media specialists in my district. (The comic is Creative Commons-licensed of course.)

public domain, fair use, creative commons