Editing Fair use (section)

== History ==
The 1710 Statute of Anne, an act of the Parliament of Great Britain, created copyright law to replace a system of private ordering enforced by the [[Stationers' Company]]. The Statute of Anne did not provide for legal unauthorized use of material protected by copyright. In ''[[Gyles v Wilcox]]'',<ref name="Gyles">{{cite court|litigants=Gyles v Wilcox|vol=3|reporter=Atk|opinion=143;26 ER 489|court=Court of Chancery (England)|date=1740|url=http://copy.law.cam.ac.uk/cam/pdf/uk_1741_1.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117032032/http://copy.law.cam.ac.uk/cam/pdf/uk_1741_1.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> the [[Court of Chancery]] established the doctrine of "fair abridgement", which permitted unauthorized abridgement of copyrighted works under certain circumstances. Over time, this doctrine evolved into the modern concepts of fair use and [[fair dealing]]. Fair use was a common-law (i.e. created by judges as a legal [[precedent]]) doctrine in the U.S. until it was incorporated into the [[United States Copyright Act of 1976|Copyright Act of 1976]], {{UnitedStatesCode|17|107}}.

The term "fair use" originated in the United States.<ref name="Folsom">{{cite court |litigants=Folsom v. Marsh |vol=9 |reporter=F. Cas. |opinion=342 |pinpoint=No. 4901 |court=C.C.D. Mass. |date=1841 |url=http://www.yalelawtech.org/wp-content/uploads/FolsomvMarsh1841.pdf |access-date=February 15, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303234210/http://www.yalelawtech.org/wp-content/uploads/FolsomvMarsh1841.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> Although related, the [[limitations and exceptions to copyright]] for teaching and library archiving in the U.S. are located in a different section of the statute. A similar-sounding principle, fair dealing, exists in some other common law jurisdictions but in fact it is more similar in principle to the enumerated exceptions found under civil law systems. [[Civil law (legal system)|Civil law]] jurisdictions have other limitations and exceptions to copyright.

In response to perceived over-expansion of copyrights, several electronic civil liberties and free expression organizations began in the 1990s to add fair use cases to their dockets and concerns. These include the [[Electronic Frontier Foundation]] ("EFF"), the [[American Civil Liberties Union]], the [[National Coalition Against Censorship]], the [[American Library Association]], numerous clinical programs at law schools, and others. The "[[Lumen (website)|Chilling Effects]]" archive was established in 2002 as a coalition of several law school clinics and the EFF to document the use of [[cease and desist]] letters. In 2006 Stanford University began an initiative called the "[[Fair Use Project]]" (FUP) to help artists, particularly filmmakers, fight lawsuits brought against them by large corporations.