Harvard Library Celebrates Ninth Annual Fair Use Week | Harvard Library

"February 21–25, 2022 is the ninth annual International Fair Use Week — celebrated at libraries, archives, museums and other institutions around the world in recognition of an element of copyright law critical to research, education and scholarship.

Without fair use, scholars would be unable to quote from sources; journalism would be unable to produce articles; thesis and dissertation writers would be unable to offer criticism or analysis of other works; professors would be unable to use music or film in classrooms; libraries would be unable to digitize their print materials — the list of necessary actions that would be affected goes on and on....

Harvard Library’s Office for Scholarly Communication (OSC) founded the first week-long celebration of fair use in 2014. As it was my first year as Copyright Advisor, in a new position, I was looking for something big to accomplish. The idea for a celebration was posted on the Fair Use Allies listserv by Prof. Pia Hunter, now Teaching Associate Professor at University of Illinois College of Law. That very year, Prof. Hunter bought the website fairuseweek.org ahead of the annual celebration. In the second year of Fair Use Week the site went live, and, now run by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), it continues to serve as the central spot for covering all things Fair Use Week...."