fair use

noun

: a legal doctrine that portions of copyrighted materials may be used without permission of the copyright owner provided the use is fair and reasonable, does not substantially impair the value of the materials, and does not curtail the profits reasonably expected by the owner

Examples of fair use in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The study raises legal questions about training data and fair use policy, according to the authors. — Jake Angelo, semafor.com, 19 Aug. 2026

Suno and Udio have argued their use of training data falls under fair use protections. — Charlotte Isidore, NPR, 18 Aug. 2026

Judge Alsup's opinion on training as fair use has not been tested on appeal, and other judges have reached different conclusions on adjacent facts. — Terdawn Deboe, Forbes.com, 17 Aug. 2026

To avoid the hassle of fair use, independent production teams often spend three, sometimes four times as much money on license fees for the same image or clip as high-budget projects commissioned by high-volume licensees like Netflix, HBO or Apple. — Addie Morfoot, IndieWire, 14 Aug. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1847, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for fair use

• abstruse
• abuse
• adduce
• atreus
• caboose
• cayuse
• conduce
• deduce
• diffuse
• disuse
• excuse
• footloose

Legal Definition

fair use

see also:

use sense 2