17 U.S.C. § 107

17 U.S.C. § 107
Name	17 U.S.C. § 107
Country	United States
Subject	Copyright law
Enacted by	United States Congress
Statute book	United States Code
Title	Title 17
Section	Section 107
Topic	Fair use doctrine

17 U.S.C. § 107

17 U.S.C. § 107 codifies the United States statutory fair use doctrine, permitting limited uses of copyrighted works without permission from United States Copyright Office, Library of Congress, Congress of the United States, Supreme Court of the United States precedents. The provision interrelates with judicial decisions from circuits such as the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, as well as landmark opinions by justices including Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., William J. Brennan Jr., and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The statute is central to disputes involving parties such as Google LLC, Oracle America, Inc., The Authors Guild, HarperCollins Publishers, and institutions like Harvard University and Stanford University.

Overview

Section 107 establishes a non-exhaustive list of factors to determine fair use, balancing interests of rightsholders like Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Universal Music Group, and The Walt Disney Company against users including YouTube, LLC, Vimeo, LLC, Facebook, Inc., and academic entities such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University. It interacts with statutory sections such as 17 U.S.C. § 106 and remedies under 17 U.S.C. § 504. Legislative history involves hearings before committees like the United States House Committee on the Judiciary and reports associated with figures such as Pat Schroeder and Howard Coble. International context includes comparison with treaties like the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and organizations like the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Text of the Statute

The text enumerates four factors: purpose and character of the use; nature of the copyrighted work; amount and substantiality; and effect upon the potential market. These provisions inform disputes involving works by authors such as J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, and composers like Ludwig van Beethoven when presented in cases argued before courts including the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and adjudicated by judges appointed by presidents like Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. Legislative amendments and commentary reference entities such as the Copyright Alliance and advocacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Fair Use Factors and Interpretation

The first factor—purpose and character—considers transformative use in opinions like those authored by judges from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States in cases involving companies such as Google LLC, Prince (musician), and institutions like Duke University. The second factor weighs works' nature with distinctions drawn for unpublished works like those of Emily Dickinson versus published works like Charles Dickens. The third factor evaluates quantitative and qualitative copying in disputes over excerpts from texts by Mark Twain or images by photographers such as Ansel Adams. The fourth factor assesses market harm, referencing markets run by firms like Amazon.com, Inc., Apple Inc., and streaming services such as Spotify Technology S.A. and Netflix, Inc..

Notable Case Law

Key cases interpreting the statute include Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., adjudicated by the Supreme Court of the United States, which affected technologies from Sony Corporation; Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. concerning 2 Live Crew; Cariou v. Prince adjudicated in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit involving artist Richard Prince; and Authors Guild v. Google, Inc. about the Google Books project. Other influential decisions involve parties such as Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises and Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc.. Circuit splits have arisen in cases before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, sometimes prompting consideration by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Application and Scope

The statute applies across mediums—literary works by Ernest Hemingway, visual arts by Pablo Picasso, sound recordings by The Beatles, and motion pictures from Paramount Pictures Corporation. Educational uses invoked by institutions such as University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University rely on the statute in conjunction with policies from organizations including Association of American Universities and funding from agencies like the National Endowment for the Arts. Technological contexts include search engines by Microsoft Corporation, Yahoo! Inc., and indexing by Internet Archive and content delivery by Cloudflare, Inc..

Controversies and Criticisms

Critiques involve debates among scholars like Lawrence Lessig, Pamela Samuelson, and Stanley Fish over broad versus narrow readings, and advocacy by groups such as the Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association. Contentious issues include mass digitization projects by Google LLC, sampling practices by artists like Kanye West, automated takedown systems used by YouTube, LLC and Twitter, Inc., and enforcement by agencies such as the United States Department of Justice. Proposals for reform appear in reports from think tanks like the Brookings Institution and legal clinics at Harvard Law School and Yale Law School.

Category:United States copyright law