Is It Fair Use?

Fair use allows the reasonable use of copyrighted works without needing to obtain permission from the copyright holder. To determine whether you have a strong argument for fair use of your material, you should evaluate your intended use against the four-factor test below. This should be done for each piece of copyrighted material you wish to use, and documented to show your evaluation. The Morton College Library has a Fair Use Checklist that you can use to document this process.

No one factor decides whether your use falls under fair use. Rather, after considering the four factors, you will hopefully be left with an overall sense that your use is "probably fair" or "probably not fair". This sense can guide your eventual use, but know that only the courts can provide a final answer.