The fair use doctrine (17 U.S. Code, Section 107) describes the conditions under which limited use of copyrighted materials is possible without prior permission from the copyright holder. This includes some educational use of copyrighted material, such as the inclusion of a copyrighted picture in a class project.

There are four fair use factors that a court must consider when determining whether a use is fair. Beyond the simple mandate that all four factors must be utilized, there is little agreed upon understanding about how the factors should be interpreted, weighed in relation to each other, or whether all the factors must point to fair use.