Fair Use Fair use provides a statutory defense in a copyright action. What fair use proposes is that it is important to protect the authors of copyrighted material’s work; however, there are certain activities that one can perform that should be excused from infringement. These activities include literary and social criticism, educational activities, and First...Read More

Courts have moved swiftly to address copyright infringement when given the opportunity. Two important cases that involve direct copyright infringement in the on-line world are Playboy v. Frena and Sega v. MAPHIA. In Playboy v. Frena, Playboy, sued George Frena, a computer bulletin board service operator, for copyright infringement of pictures that were scanned into...Read More

Copyright infringement occurs when someone exercises control over the exclusive rights of the owner without the owner’s authorization. The exclusive rights of the author include the right of the author to: (1) reproduce their work either privately or publicly, (2) prepare derivative works either privately or publicly. A derivative work is “any work that is...Read More