 core mission of research libraries is to arrive at the long-term preservation and access to research resources to all of our communities and To do that we rely on many provisions in the Copyright Act in particular in the case of the code We rely on fair use so we will rely on fair use and support of teaching and learning We rely on fair use and support of scholarship. We rely on fair use in all of our preservation activities We rely on fair use and other provisions in the Copyright Act to support the work of the disabled community and We also rely on fair use in order to make our resources more accessible publicly through public-facing activities such as outreach exhibits newsletters and the like Fair use is valuable for libraries and librarians In much the same way that it's valuable for other members of society That is to say it functions as the the ultimate safety valve in the copyright system when you need and have a good story to tell about why you need to make some specific unlicensed use of copyrighted material that the copyright law doesn't Otherwise Specifically authorize you to make then fair use comes into play and that's as true in the library Context as it is in any others. It can be really tricky to apply Fair use the doctrine to normal everyday practice because the law was written in an intentionally vague and flexible way it had evolved in the courts over Over a century and Congress didn't want to stop that evolution They wanted the doctrine to be flexible and so they wrote the doctrine in a way that's very flexible It has these four factors. You don't know you have to balance them. You're not sure how it has this little explanatory paragraph You're not sure how to what to make of it. That's all quite on purpose It is meant to be a flexible doctrine that poses a challenge for you because you don't know page limits You don't know minute limits You don't know how many people are supposed to be able to do this over and over again before it suddenly crosses a line Because there isn't a line there isn't a line in the statute and that's on purpose So we have to work together and figure out what those lines are makers are making and they are finding themselves able to Release to the public films that either wouldn't have been made or wouldn't have been seen before producers of open courseware are finding that they can bring material from the classroom to the open web Without as used to be the case Scissoring out all of the incorporated bits of third-party copyrighted content What's really been exciting is seeing how effective codes of best practices have been Liberating people to be able to make better work and more work without putting them into danger and without Causing any pushback from content holders or gatekeepers The code itself reflects a consensus in the community That we you know We worked for a year talking with folks to figure out what people would really think when they sat down and Worked through these problems and the way that librarians can now use the code is to strengthen that consensus to spread that consensus We believe because of the way the process works that we've got really strong Principles here that will make intuitive sense for librarians. We're speaking your language. We're talking about your values These are things that we heard from you and we just wrote them down So what you can then do is take this language take this framework and share it share it with your peers share it with your boss and And use this framework as a way to think about the problems that you're facing in your own practice Fair use is like a muscle if you exercise it it will go grow stronger and more robust And if you fail to exercise it it will atrophy in that respect It's not very different from all the other rights that are secured to us by our laws and Constitution but It's particularly important that those who do understand fair use should take the lead and Give others the example that they can follow in their own practice