2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Fair Use in Disputes: Is the Doctrine of U.S Copyright Effectively Utilized on A Practical Level?

Research Project

Project/Area Number	24730008
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Research Field	Fundamental law
Research Institution	Setsunan University
Principal Investigator	IEMOTO Mami 摂南大学, 法学部, 准教授 (10411703)
Project Period (FY)	2012-04-01 – 2014-03-31
Keywords	著作権 / フェア・ユース / アメリカ / 芸術 / 現代アート / アプロプリエーション
Research Abstract	Fair use is a defense against copyright infringement claim and justifies a use of copyrighted work without permission from the copyright owner. Since courts have drawn no bright line between what fair use is or not and their decisions are case-by-case basis, it is often criticized that fair use is not useful on a practical level. In this research, I focused on a case over a series of artworks done by a well-known artist for appro-priation which is borrowing pre-exiting works and images by others to make new artworks. This case has got considerable attention because of his celebrity and the contrary decisions by the U.S. district court and the circuit court. Both decisions did not clearly explain what kind of use of pre-existing works could be fair, and that leads to the criticism of the courts' ambiguous attitude on fair use disputes. Analyzing these decisions, I pointed out that further decisions would be expected for a fair use guideline in art community.