Citations focus primarily on the literature about the proposed guidelines from the Conference on Fair Use (CONFU), including background, analysis, and news coverage. CONFU literature, and indeed the literature of the fair-use guidelines developed since the early 1970s, reflect differing views on the adequacy of fair-use law, how the law may balance the needs of users and owners of copyrighted works, and the law's applicability to new technologies and media. An examination reveals the literature often lacks systematic reviews and analyses of the needs of academic users and the interests of copyright owners.
From the time the fair-use doctrine was incorporated into the U.S. Copyright Act in 1976, fair-use guidelines have emerged in different settings to facilitate the application of the law in the context of education and librarianship.
In its final report in November 1998, the Conference on Fair Use (CONFU) proposed the latest set of fair-use guidelines, addressing the use of digital images, distance learning, and educational multimedia. The report also includes a statement setting forth general rules and scenarios about the use of computer software in libraries. CONFU did not formally adopt a draft of guidelines for electronic reserves, and guidelines for interlibrary loan and document delivery never reached the draft stage. CONFU meetings considered briefly other topics such as encryption, transient copy, downloading for personal use, and browsing.
Earlier guidelines originated during the general revision that led to the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976. Those earlier guidelines concern library photocopying, educational uses of music, off-air videotaping, and interlibrary loan.
The literature on fair-use guidelines, which began to appear in the early 1970s, reflects differing views on the adequacy of fair-use law, how the law may balance the needs of users and owners of copyrighted works, and the law's applicability to new technologies and media.
Readers may surmise that most of the support for guidelines usually stems from the perceived need for clearer and easier application of the law. Educators and librarians, as well as authors and publishers, often seek general rules to measure with more precision whether a use is fair or not. Reluctance about the guidelines, or outright opposition to them, seems to originate from perceptions that guidelines or general rules could constrict a law that calls for balancing four factors in a case-by-case examination. From this perspective, certainty in fair use comes only when a court determines if a particular use is fair. Privately negotiated guidelines, this view would posit, ought not to usurp the role of courts.
Overall, the literature about fair-use guidelines often lacks systematic reviews and analyses of the needs of academic users or the interests of copyright owners. Additional investigations are needed to assess the extent to which fair-use guidelines meet the needs of owners and users of copyrighted materials, as well as to ascertain their usefulness to academic institutions.