The Authors Alliance has created a resource to help nonfiction writers get a better sense of what fair use is and how it can be used. Fair Use for Nonfiction Authors presents common scenarios that a writer may encounter.
They’ve split the book up into sections based on situations regularly faced by nonfiction writers, like:
- Criticizing, discussing, or commenting on copyrighted material
- Using copyrighted material to illustrate, support, or prove an argument or a point
- Using copyrighted material for non-consumptive research
The book also presents a series of FAQs, including “Can I still claim fair use if I ask the copyright owner for permission to use the material and permission is refused?” As a bonus, the resource is published with a CC-BY license which makes it easy to reuse portions or the entire document.
This should be a very useful reference for anyone doing nonfiction writing.
