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Transformative Use/Fair Use
Professor Wagner,
I was a little confused by how you explained transformative use and fair use in the review session. My understanding was that transformative use is a type of copyright infringement where the infringer takes material fixed in one medium and fixes it in another.
First of all, please correct me if I'm incorrect and secondly please explain how fair use can apply, I would have thought that this would be a per se infringement of the copyright holder's right to make derivative works. Or do you just apply the 4 fair use factors to this?
Many thanks
Owen
Posted by Owen Lipsett at April 29, 2006 7:52 PM in Questions
Comments
"Transformative use" is a factor in the fair use analysis: the more "transformative" the use, the more likely it is to be found fair use. As we discussed in class, this is because we think that such uses may be especially socially beneficial, because they use old works as a building block for new works.
As we discussed during the review session, a use that is "transformative" will by definition be a derivative work, but may well be fair, depending upon how the four 107 factors play out.
Posted by: Polk Wagner at April 30, 2006 03:22 PM
