If you plan on using another’s copyrighted work, you’ll surely want to know the laws before doing so. Otherwise, you may be in violation of federal statutes, with penalties of up to $150,000 per violation.
In this article, we’ll discuss 10 of the most common misconceptions about the "fair use" doctrine under copyright laws. In short, copyrighted works protect the owner from another’s use of that work without the owner’s consent. Copyright laws give the owner of a work, such as a book, movie, article, drawing, etc. a lot of protections. However, there are certain exceptions where others can use a copyrighted work without the owner’s consent.
One of the biggest exceptions is called the "fair use" doctrine. If the use of a work falls under the "fair use" doctrine, others can use that work without the owner’s consent. But you’ll have to be cautious when using the fair use doctrine or you may commit copyright infringement.
Next, we’ll go over fair use misconceptions 1 through 3.