It can often be tricky to determine whether something you want to do falls within fair dealing. This quick guide sets out the steps you should take and the factors you should consider. Ultimately, it will depend on your particular circumstances and you have to make a judgment call as to whether your use can be classified as “fair”. If you have any doubt, you should ask for permission. If the work is a library-licenced electronic resource, the permissibility of your use is determined by the terms of the licence.
Step 1: Check whether your purpose is a permitted purpose
Are you using the work for the purpose of:
- Research
- Private study
- Criticism
- Review
- News reporting
- Education
- Satire
- Parody
Yes - Continue to step 2
No - Check whether use is covered under:
- Any other Copyright Act exception
- Library licences for electronic journals and databases (Note: some licences may prohibit some uses even if the purpose is one of the above.)
- Cinematograph film licences
- Any other agreement
Step 2: Check whether your use is "fair"
Is the nature of the dealing fair?
| Nature of the Dealing |
Less fair
|
More fair
|
|---|---|---|
| Purpose |
Commercial
|
Charitable/Educational
|
| Character of the dealing |
Multiple copies;
Widely distributed/repetitive
|
Single copy;
Limited distribution/one-off
|
| Importance/amount of work copied |
Entire Work/Significant excerpt
|
Limited/trivial amount
|
| Effect of dealing on the original work |
Competing with
original work |
No detriment
to original |
| Nature of the work |
Confidential
|
Unpublished/in public Interest
|
| Available alternatives |
Non-copyright works
available; Not necessary for
purpose |
No alternative
works; Necessary to achieve
purpose |
Fair dealing flow chart by the University of Waterloo Copyright Advisory Committee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.