Under the R.O.C. Copyright Act, before making any use of a work to which another person enjoys the economic rights (if the use involves any exclusive right or power of the economic rights owner), it is always necessary to obtain permission or licensing from the economic rights owner, except under certain circumstances of "fair use" that are specified in Articles 44 to 65 of the Copyright Act. In principle, licensing is not required if the use of a work in a specific case clearly conforms to explicit fair use provisions of the Copyright Act. When determining what constitutes fair use in cases not explicitly addressed by the fair use provisions, no single rule of thumb can be applied in all cases. It is necessary to consider the four standards set out in Article 65, paragraph 2, of the Copyright Act:
(1) the purposes and nature of the exploitation, including whether such exploitation is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion exploited in relation to the work as a whole;
(4) the effect of the exploitation on the work's current and potential market value. For example, if a student who is writing a thesis and needs to use material from a book to which another person owns the economic rights photocopies a portion of the book, it probably falls within the scope of fair use if the copied portion accounts for only a small part of the entire book and will not encroach upon the market for the book. In such a case, the student and photocopy business are not likely to face infringement issues. However, if a student photocopies the entire textbook for use in a class, then he or she has in effect encroached on the market for the book and exceeded the scope of fair use, constituting infringement of copyright.

• Publish Date : 2008-04-24
• Update : 2022-07-22
• Organization : International Legal Affairs Office
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