Fair Use in Higher Education

The four factor test is used to determine fair use:

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for non-profit educational purposes;
2. The nature of the copyright work;
3. Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyright work as a whole; and
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market or value of the copyright work.

Each fair use case must be reviewed independently. To assist in your fair use review, UB libraries maintains a Copyright and Fair Use website.

Educause also has a lengthy summary of how Fair Use applies to higher education and provides a lot of advice on how to approach the use of copyrighted materials.

If you receive a copyright infringement notice or a letter from a lawyer, contact your local IT support , departmental chair and University at Buffalo's designated DMCA agent:

UB Information Security Office
201 Computing Center
Buffalo, NY 14260
Phone: 716-645-6997
Email: sec-office@buffalo.edu

Downloading commercially available music and sharing it on a P2P network.

Quoting passages from a book in a report for a class assignment.