Skip to main content
Copyright Licensing Office

Fair Use - Video

Movies, television shows, and other video are protected by copyright. Using clips from copyrighted movies and television show implicates several of the copyright owners’ exclusive rights. This means you need permission from the owners for your use unless your use falls within fair use or another exemption to the rights of copyright owners.

Fair use is an exception to the rights of copyright owners which allows you to make limited uses of copyrighted works without the owner’s consent under certain circumstances, including teaching, scholarship, research, news reporting, criticism, and commentary. Courts evaluate whether use of a copyrighted work constitutes fair use by considering four factors, which you can remember by the acronym P.A.I.N.:

  1. P = the purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is commercial or noncommercial (noncommercial uses will generally weigh in favor of fair use; commercial uses will typically weigh against fair use). Courts also favor “transformative” uses. A transformative use may occur when you alter or transform the work into something new or when you use the work in a new manner or context, distinct from the intended use of the original.
  2. A = the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole (shorter clips are more likely to fall within fair use than longer clips; however, even a short clip may weigh against fair use if it is the “heart” of the work (the most important/most interesting part of the work)).
  3. I = the impact of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work (a use that harms the market for the work or its value, or that replaces a sale of the work or a license to use it will generally weigh against fair use); and
  4. N = the nature of the copyrighted work (if it’s more creative (e.g., music, movies, images, fiction), this factor will weigh against fair use, if it’s more factual or informational, this factor will weigh in favor of fair use).

Fair use is a balancing act. You need to evaluate and apply the four factors to each use of a copyrighted work, but you don’t necessarily have to satisfy all of them for your use to be fair. We recommend using the BYU Fair Use Evaluation Log (FUEL) to assist you in your fair use analysis.