Copyright / Fair Use: [in]Transition

MediaCommons is a strong advocate for the right of media scholars to remix and quote from the materials they analyze, as protected by the principle of “fair use” as articulated in American copyright law. If such quotation or remix is necessary to a scholar’s argument, if the quotation or remix serves to support a scholar’s original analysis or pedagogical purpose, and if the quotation or remix does not unduly harm the market value of the original, we must defend the scholar’s right to quote from and remix the media texts under study. MediaCommons holds that scholarly quotation and remix under Fair Use enhances the value and cultural currency of objects of study.