More than 40 countries with over one-third of the world’s population have fair use or fair dealing provisions in their copyright laws. These countries are in all regions of the world and at all levels of development. The broad diffusion of fair use and fair dealing indicates that there is no basis for preventing the more widespread adoption of these doctrines, with the benefits their flexibility brings to authors, publishers, consumers, technology companies, libraries, museums, educational institutions, and governments. This is particularly the case considering that the copyright laws in many “civil law” countries currently allow their courts to apply a specific exception in a specific case only if second and third steps of the Berne three-step-test are met. That is, the court may permit the use only if it determines that the use does not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the rights holder. These steps are at least as abstract and difficult to apply as fair use or fair dealing.

This handbook contains the fair use and fair dealing statutes the authors were able to identify.

Keywords

fair use · limitations · exceptions · copyright