Some notes from attending the National Association of College and University Attorneys’ Copyright and Fair Use: Codes of Best Practice in Higher Education webinar.

Quotes from the webinar:

• “For college’s, applying ‘fair use’ doctrine should be a case of risk management.”
• “‘Fair Use’ is about gray areas. You should ask yourself: is it a gray area for the other side?” (in other words, would it actually provoke legal action?)
• “A reason that fair use has flourished in education for images is because there is no copyright clearinghouse mechanism for images… but I think there will be.”
• “The Copyright Clearance Center is not [a library’s] friend… they are out there trying to shrink the domain of legitimate fair use.”

Other fun:

• “Artists are natural lawyers because they use a gray scale.”
• “There is always a degree of ineliminable risk when invoking fair use.”