Fair Use

The Fair Use idea is considered to be a way for teachers and non-profit organizations to use copyrighted media as long as it has an educational purpose and is intended for classroom use rather than a public audience.  However, this does not mean that educators can choose anything and make it their own; it simply means that if an educator builds a strong enough case, the courts will most likely rule in their favor saying that the educator is not trying to gain anything out of the exchange other than education. Determining if something can be considered Fair Use includes works such as criticism, comments, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. So basically anything that will not help a person profit or generate any monetary gain, can use copyrighted media. However, most cases are looking for a modification to the original piece. This means the courts want to see how and why the information is being used, and what is being added to it. The law is in place because a lot of media has more value to it than entertainment. If someone can turn it into an educational tool or something to promote a good cause, the government is allowing for this to be exploited rather than having the owner of the original material being the sole prosperer of the media. Basically the law is making it so educators who want to use the idea of the media to promote learning, don't have to pay for it. However, the Fair Use policy does not mean everyone is untouchable. Their are still cases where people have tried to make profit off of someone else's work and therefore have been sued. The main goal of Fair Use is to protect those who are using the material in such a way to help educate.