What is Fair Use? (Explained By a Lawyer)

Fair Use is a defense to a claim of copyright infringement and it lays out situations in which you do not need to get the song owner’s permission to use his or her material. In other words, Fair use means you can use existing, copyright content like a sample clip in new ways that provides value beyond the original. When it comes to music, courts look for 4 factors when considering Fair Use: 1. What is the purpose or context of the work? Is it for profit or is it for a non-commercial non-profit use? Are you making it for any educational purpose? Or is it used to criticize or give commentary? 2. Second, what’s the nature of the work? Is it published or not published? 3. Third, how much sampling or copying was done? Did it or did it not use a substantial amount of the original work? Was a little copied or a whole lot of the original song? 4. And lastly, what’s the effect on the value of the original work? Is the sampled or copied song just a substitute for the original or does it no