Music and Fair Use

Music and the Fair Use Clause

Note: I am not an attorney. The following are generalizations only based on my study of copyright law and are not meant to be construed as legal advice. If you have a question, consult a competent attorney specializing in copyrights and intellectual property law.

The law allows you to make copies of -small portions- of the protected work for specified public-interest uses. These are listed as: criticism or commentary (including parody), news reporting, research, or teaching. The court looks at such things as these when determining whether an alleged violation falls under the fair use clauses:

purpose and character of the use (non-commercial and educational have a better chance of being considered fair use)
nature of the work itself (works available for purchase by the public are given less protection under this clause than those which are unpublished or not available for public purchase)
amount of the work used in the alleged violation (was an entire movement used or just the major theme?)
what effect the alleged violation has on the potential market for the original (the copyright owner must demonstrate that his income will be diminished because of the non- authorized use of his original).

Fair use does allow copying for educational purposes if the following conditions are met:

for non-consumable classroom work (not exams or worksheets)
a maximum of one copy per student
excerpts which do not form a performable section (not an entire movement, for example)
not more than 10% of the original.

If you photocopied one page of a 15-page Eugenie Rocherolle piece - - one for each student in your piano pedagogy class to study in class as an example of music for intermediate-level pupils - - you'd probably be ok because: the students are not taking the paper with them. You are keeping them for the next class, whether it's this semester or next academic year). What you cannot do is copy a page and use it as a worksheet for your theory students to analyze; that makes the photocpy a "consumable."

And you can't copy the entire piece and distribute it to your private piano students for them to learn to play.

Photocopying a page or two of a multi-page work to avoid a clumsy page turn is generally considered fair use. This is because you are photocopying only one or two pages; and they are -not- consecutive - - and therefore not performable as a unit.

Note: Ownership of a copyrighted item does not confer upon you the right to make copies of the item. That right still resides with the copyright holder. What you "buy" when you purchase that music is the right to reproduce the sound version of that music on your piano.

Bottom line: Ownership does -not- equal right to copy!

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