Commerciality and Fair Use

Abstract

Congress adopted the common law doctrine of fair use as Section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act. A court’s determination of fair use under Section 107 is on a case-by-case basis. In its analysis, a court considers and weighs all of the nonexclusive four factors listed in Section 107. The first factor is a critical part of overall fair use analysis. This factor addresses “the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.”

The purpose of this article is to review and reflect on the reference to “a commercial nature” in the phrase “including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.” The article traces and assesses how courts have considered commerciality from the initial inclusion of the wording in Section 107 through recent cases applying “transformative” use analysis.