Fair Use and Social Media Sites like BuzzFeed -

Fair use, an evolving doctrine and a very popular fallback for those on the Internet, has continued to be “the most troublesome in the whole law of copyright.” Its goal has been to promote freedom of expression in order to achieve copyright’s overall purpose of promoting the progress of knowledge and learning. But in the age of social media, when about 96 percent of young adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine use the Internet, freedom of expression is accomplished through the sharing of content, licensed or not. Social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, and BuzzFeed encourage the sharing of such content and arguably rely on it. This has led to social media sites being sued for copyright infringement. Social media sites like BuzzFeed have used fair use as an affirmative defense but it’s unclear if they have such protection.

Fair Use and Freedom of Expression -

Copyright law in the United States was designed to provide a marketable right for the creators and distributors of copyrighted works. It does not recognize moral rights and therefore places marketable rights over those of author’s rights. But, because of the United States’ strong tradition of freedom of speech, copyright tries to balance those marketable rights with the promotion of freedom of expression. Fair use was therefore codified to promote such freedom of expression through the unlicensed use of copyrighted works in certain circumstances. Due to the balancing of marketable rights and freedom of expression, fair use has been an evolving doctrine. However, because technology has allowed for greater human connections and forms of expressions, fair use is evolving at a greater pace than before.