Fair Use and Copyright Exceptions: A Legal Perspective

Overview

It is very important to learn about the fair use under copyright law for both the author as well the person who is using it. Fair use basically means that you can use the copyrighted work without the consent of the author. And that lies under the exceptions to the use of copyrighted work. The fair use is necessarily be regulated in a proper way so that there are less cases on the infringement of the copyrighted work. Since, every little use cannot come under the infringement and hence fair use and exceptions to copyright is to be regulated property.

Section 52 of the Indian copyright Act,1957

Section 52 of the Indian copyright Act,1957 deals with the fair use of copyright. Section 52 states that what does not constitute as an infringement to copyright which includes:

1. Fair dealing of any work, except a computer program for the purpose of:
2. Private use
3. Public use
4. Research
5. Criticism of that work or any other
6. Review of that work or any other
7. Reporting of current event and current affairs

Factor that decide fair use

Fair use is a kind of defense which the parties take. There has been a lot of confusion regarding what is considered as fair uses and what not. The judges decide as to what is fair use or not. They mostly look on the following things while deciding for fair use:

1. The objective of the use of the copyrighted work.
2. The nature of the copyrighted work.
3. The portion or part of the work that has been copied.
4. The effect of that use on the market.

The objective of the work:

Whether the use of the copyright is fair or not can be decided by knowing its purpose. The objective of the work is actually infringing the copyright or it has been used for the purpose of the studying and research. It will always be considered a fair use if the work has been a transformative work that is a work which has been transformed into some other with the help of the copyrighted work. It means that you did not exactly copy that work but only take help of that work to incorporate it in your own work. The purpose of the new work is important to know for

The nature of the copyrighted work:

The nature of the work plays a critical role in fair use. As if it is an unpublished work then the use of such work is a little bit difficult but it the work is published it can be accessed more easily. The nature of the copyrighted work depends upon how easily the work is accessible.

The portion or part of the work copyrighted 

The portion or the work that has been copyrighted is very essential as that can easily make a differentiate between the fair use and the infringement of the copyright work. That depends on the fact of the case that whether such portion is fair use or not you cannot say that if one sentence is copied it will consider as fair use.

The effect of that use on the market

It is important to note that the new work that used the copyrighted work is whether subsisting value of copyrighted wok in the market. What is the effect of the work on general public and how the use of copyrighted work effects the market.

Case Laws

Saregama India Ltd. & Ors. v. Alkesh Gupta & Ors. (2013)

In this case the Calcutta high court held that streaming, publication, or permitting the other sound recording on a website is not permissible. If someone downloaded from such website it is the infringement of the copyright.

Masters & Scholars of University of Oxford v. Rameshwari Photocopy Services (2016)

In this case the Delhi high court held that the use of a copyrighted work in the educational purpose will not cause any infringement. the court said that reproducing any work from a book will not amount to infringement.