Copyright and Fair Use

This code of best practices in scholarly publishing was created by the Society for Cinema and Media Studies to serve scholars in film and media studies.

 This code of best practices in fair use in teaching for film/media educators was designed by The Society for Cinema and Media Studies. It deals with classroom screenings, broadcasts, and derivative works.

Filmmakers have been successfully employing fair use, even before the Statement of Best Practices clarified their common understandings. Here are some examples of uncontested choices for fair use. They are organized here according to the principles that filmmakers articulated in the Statement, in the categories used in the Statement. These categories are only four of the most common situations for filmmakers; some uses could be hybrid, and others might fall outside these four categories. We welcome more examples at socialmedia@american.edu.