Fair use
fair YOOZ
A legal doctrine that allows limited use of copyrighted material without permission for purposes like commentary, education, and research.
Fair use is a US legal doctrine that allows limited use of copyrighted material without the copyright holder's permission. It exists to balance the rights of creators with the public interest in commentary, criticism, education, and research.
Four factors determine whether a use is fair: the purpose and character of the use (commercial vs. educational, transformative vs. copies), the nature of the copyrighted work, how much of the work was used, and the effect on the market for the original work. No single factor is decisive. Courts weigh all four.
For tech companies, fair use comes up in several contexts: training AI models on copyrighted text, using screenshots in competitive comparisons, quoting articles in blog posts, and using logos in integration pages. The boundaries are fuzzy and litigation is expensive. When in doubt, get permission or consult a lawyer. Understanding intellectual property law more broadly helps navigate these situations. Your company's terms of service should also spell out how your own content may be used by others.
Examples
A blog post quotes a paragraph from a competitor's article.
The author quotes two sentences to critique the argument, then provides their own analysis. This is likely fair use: it is transformative, uses a small portion, and serves a commentary purpose.
A company uses screenshots in a comparison page.
The marketing team includes screenshots of competitor products on a comparison page. This is a gray area. Using them for factual comparison may be fair use, but reproducing full UI designs could be challenged.
An AI company trains a model on copyrighted books.
Several lawsuits challenge whether using copyrighted text to train LLMs constitutes fair use. The outcome will depend on whether courts view the training as transformative and whether it harms the market for the original works.
Frequently asked questions
Is fair use a global concept?
Fair use is a US legal doctrine. Other countries have similar but different concepts. The UK has 'fair dealing,' which is narrower and limited to specific purposes like research, criticism, and news reporting.
Does fair use protect using images found online?
Not automatically. Using an image from Google search in a commercial blog post is likely not fair use. The safest approach is to use images you have a license for or that are in the public domain.
Related terms
Legal rights that protect creations of the mind, including patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets.
A permissive open source license that allows anyone to use, modify, and distribute the software with minimal restrictions.
The practice of tracking and fulfilling the legal obligations of all open source software used in a product.
Want the complete playbook?
Picks and Shovels is the definitive guide to developer marketing. Amazon #1 bestseller with practical strategies from 30 years of marketing to developers.