Copyright & Fair Use Resources

The Center for Social Media at American University has a lot of great resources related to the fair use of copyrighted material. They have a new Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video.

Fair use is the right, in some circumstances, to quote copyrighted material without asking permission or paying for it. It is a crucial feature of copyright law and what keeps copyright from being censorship. You can invoke fair use when the value to the public of what you are saying outweighs the cost to the private owner of the copyright.