You've Got to Be Kidding!: How to Keep Your Job Without Losing Your Integrity

When You Don’t Need Permission

You may freely copy and report works that are:

• In the public domain (the copyright has expired and is no longer protected)
• Government documents
• Facts (no one can claim originality or authorship for facts like, “The sun rises in the east,” and “There are 50 states in the United States”)
• “Fair use,” which you can determine based on these four tests:
  • Test No. 1: Purpose and character of use. When the use is noncommercial, the copied work is more likely to be found to be fair use. Transformative uses (where the work is physically changed) are favored over mere copying. Noncommercial uses are also more likely to be judged fair use.
  • Test No. 2: Nature of the copyrighted work. A copied work is more likely to be judged fair use if it is factual rather than creative.
  • Test No. 3: Amount and substantiality of the portion used. If only an inconsequential amount of the protected work is used, it is likely to be found to be fair use. If what is used is small in amount but substantial in terms of importance, such as the excerpt from President Gerald Ford’s memoir cited earlier, a finding of fair use is unlikely. Keep in mind that a work does not have to be identical to infringe on the copyright of another piece. The legal test of infringement is “substantial similarity,” which translates (roughly) into whether a work is copied in whole or in part from an earlier one.
  • Test No. 4: Effect on the potential market for, or value of, the protected work. For example, ...