What is the purpose of the fair use defense?
There is no easy answer to this question. However, one way to approach the question is to examine the purposes of the copyright laws. The clause of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to enact copyright laws indicates that the purpose of the given power is to “promote the progress of science and the useful arts” by allowing authors to secure the exclusive rights in their works for “limited times.” Thus, many see the Constitutional scheme behind copyright as a kind of balance between (1) forming incentives for authors to create new works by giving them rights that will allow them to make money from their works, and (2) limiting the rights so that the works themselves are useful to the public and in turn advance the “progress of science and the useful arts.” Fair use fits into this scheme by giving the public the right to use copyrighted works in certain situations even though the author has exclusive rights. That is, in some circumstances, such as certain uses involving schol
