Fair dealing is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work, which is found in many of the common law jurisdictions of the Commonwealth of Nations.
Fair dealing is an enumerated set of possible defences against an action for infringement of an exclusive right of copyright. Unlike the related United States doctrine of fair use, fair dealing cannot apply to any act which does not fall within one of these categories. In practice, common law courts might rule that actions with a commercial character, which might be naïvely assumed to fall into one of these categories, were in fact infringements of copyright as fair dealing is not as flexible a concept as the American concept of fair use.
Famous quotes containing the words fair and/or dealing:
“The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The bulk of mankind believe in two gods. They are under one dominion here in the house, as friend and parent, in social circles, in letters, in art, in love, in religion; but in mechanics, in dealing with steam and climate, in trade, in politics, they think they come under another.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)