Law note · United States (federal only)
Copyright Act, fair use, 17 U.S.C. § 107
cite 17 U.S.C. § 107
stage IN FORCE in force since 1978-01-01
The federal fair-use statute is the primary framework for evaluating whether news aggregators, search engines, and AI training pipelines may reproduce copyrighted content without a license. Courts weigh four factors: purpose and character of the use (especially transformativeness), nature of the copyrighted work, amount and substantiality taken, and effect on the market for the original.
Commercial, non-transformative snippet aggregation that substitutes for licensed feeds fails fair use (Meltwater); transformative indexing and limited display may succeed (Google Books, Perfect 10).
Primary source: Legal Information Institute (Cornell)
Copyright Act of 1976, effective Jan 1 1978