Fair Use in US Copyright Law is a "First Amendment Safeguard"

Thanks to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the US Supreme Court said fair use is a "First Amendment Safeguard". In other words, fair use is not some minor exception to the expansive protection granted to authors for their creative work. Rather, fair use is a fundamental right.

Copyright law provides four factors to consider in determining whether a use of a copyrighted material is 'fair use':

1) purpose and character of the use;

2) nature of the copyrighted work;

3) the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

4) the effect of the use upon the potential market.

Typically, an important factor courts generally hone in on is the purpose of the use. The Court will ask 'is the use transformative?' There is a higher likelihood that the Court will deem use of copyrighted work to be 'fair use' if it's transformative -- it adds something new, with a different character, expression, meaning, or function. Below are examples where the Court determined fair use (see, https://www.fairuseweek.org/):