Transcript: Tra’Vaysha

The creativity of human beings is beyond comprehension sometimes. A big part of my childhood, like others I am sure, was me sitting in front of the TV watching cartoon, after cartoon, after cartoon. I was amazed that such stories, characters, and worlds could be brought into existence through someone getting them from their imagination into a tangible form on the screen.

These stories, characters, and worlds had such a profound impact on me that when I got the chance, and found friends that shared in my love of cartoons, we got together and decided to write scripts and make videos about those stories, characters, and worlds and post them on YouTube so the world could share in our love with them. And while that was a noble thought and I have no regrets, we were hit with so many copyright infringements claims on the site, for using someone else’s work without their permission. Luckily enough for us, we were able to make a fair use argument.

Fair use is both a right and an affirmative defense when someone or something brings a copyright infringement case against you. To determine if your use of someone else’s work is fair use, you must first do a fair use analysis using the four factors of fair use.

1.) You look at the purpose of the use, did you use it for educational purposes? Or did you use it for a commercial purpose? Also, did you transform the original work?

2.) What was the nature of the original work you used, was it fact or fiction? Was it published or unpublished?

3.) What amount of the original work did you use, did you use the entire work, just a portion of it, did you use the most important part of it?

4.) Finally, ask yourself, does your work have a financial effect on the market place of the original work? I know that sounds like a lot but it’s so important. There are no hard percentages and numbers allocated that tell you how much of each you can have, it’s a nuanced case- by-case decision, so use your best judgment in determining fair use.

In the case of me and my friends, we used stills and clips of other authors work, and while we have a better understanding of fair use, we always have a fair use analysis ready to go for each of our videos, just in case. Fair use can be applied both in and out of the classroom, and while it’s not a green light to infringe upon huge sections of someone’s work, it is a tool to keep creativity and innovation alive and well. Fair use is my friend, fair use is your friend, so please use it.