Defining Fair Use on YouTube: A Guide to Modern Copyright

Abstract

Copyright law is a large, complex issue that has found itself at the center of controversy on YouTube. Much of the debate around copyright centers on whether a video is fair use, the exception to copyright laws. There are large problems on YouTube surrounding the exploitation of the Content ID system, and the solutions to these problems often rely on the assumption of clear and defined copyright law, which is far from the case. This led my research into finding out based on the case law, what constitutes fair use on YouTube? Using a content analysis, these complexities of copyright law were able to be broken down into easy-to-understand guidelines. To do this, roughly 30 cases were found using the websites case.law and copyright.gov, and the decision of the case and the reasoning behind it were pulled out to create guidelines based on the copyright case law of court decisions. These guidelines consist of having a license for the copyrighted content, using the content for education, criticism or review, providing significant commentary to shift the focus away from the content, using the content for parody, changing the purpose of the content, or using an insignificant portion of the content. If any of these scenarios are met, then the video will likely not violate copyright. The use of these guidelines could be implemented into YouTubes algorithm, but more likely these guidelines would be easy to follow for creators to know whether or not their video will violate copyright.