Legal Discalimer

The following is for general information purposes only and should not be taken as legal advice for any particular situation. If you have a specific concern you should consult with an attorney familiar with the relevant issues in the jurisdiction in question.

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Since you did not specify in your question, we do not know in what country you are planning to do your project. The following is based on the assumption you are in the United States.

From Wikipedia:

Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, search engines, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship. It provides for the legal, unlicensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test. The term fair use originated in the United States. A similar principle, fair dealing, exists in some other common law jurisdictions. Civil law jurisdictions have other limitations and exceptions to copyright.

The "four factors" referenced in the above quote determine whether use of copyrighted content falls within the scope of fair use.

• Purpose and Character: Is the use transformative or merely derivative? The former is considered fair use, the latter is not. What new development does the use add to the arts, music, or literature?
• Nature of the copied work: Facts, ideas, historical events, etc. belong in the public domain and are separate from copyright law. A particular expression regarding those facts, ideas, events, etc. is what may be protected by copyright. The classic case for this test is the Zapruder film of the assassination Of J.F.K. Time magazine held the copyrights to the film, yet the courts ruled that they could not prevent still images from the film from being included in history books that discussed the J.F.K. assassination.
• Amount and Substantiality: How much of the work is appropriated, not only in terms of a percentage of the whole but also in terms of the significance of what is used.
• Effect upon the work's value: Will the use of copyrighted material result in harm to the original work's owner? Will it diminish the value of the original work by providing a direct market substitute? In general, copyright does not shield a work from parody or adverse criticism that might result in diminished value of the copyright holder's work. It does shield it from a derivative work that replaces it in the marketplace.

In order for a copyright holder to obtain a judgement as a plaintiff, they must show that a prima facie case of infringement by the defendant occurred against their copyrighted work. Once the prima facie infringement has been established, the burden of proof is on the defendant to show they fairly used the copyrighted content. Many times the mere threat of legal action will cause the potential defendant to abandon the fair use of material, or agree to pay a licensing fee, in order to avoid the legal expense necessary to defend their legitimate use of it.