The Artful Jurist

A question came up recently in which a friend was inquiring about a fair use exception to the copyright law. Among the things my friend pointed out was that there was no admission charge involved.

Just so we're all clear on this important point, whether or not anyone's charged for the experience has no impact on whether or not an appropriation of someone else's copyrighted material is a fair use. The reason is simple.

Let's say I've written a play, and someone gets ahold of a copy of the script and decides to produce it without attaining the necessary permission from me. Even if there's no admission charge to the people who come to see the show, the unauthorized production still causes me an economic harm because, now that everyone in that city who was interested in seeing the play has already had the opportunity to see it for free, what chance is there that those same people will pay to see the show again. My ability to market the play to a theater that charges admission has been diminished.

Bottom line...No charge is no defense to copyright infringement.