Copyright & Fair Use vs CCL - OER Background: Creative Commons (CC) - Licensing and OER - Library Home at Fox Valley Technical College

Copy rights are property rights. The copyright owner has the right to make a profit on every copy.

The foundation of content creation, protection, and use, is that copyright protection starts when a work is put in tangible form.

The law protects the right of the copyright owner to have the opportunity to receive payment for every copy of their intellectual property.

Caution: The creator of an original work may not own the copyright. If you produce a “work for hire”, your employer may claim the copyright.

Copyright protects an owner's intellectual property. Do not steal credit or content!
Fair Use
Makes use of copyrighted material without permission legal, under certain circumstances. Usually, just one copy for personal non-commerical educational use. Does not include workbooks unless copyright owner grants permission.
Use the Four Factors test to evaluate whether your use may fall under "Fair Use"
1. If the purpose and character of your use is non-profit - that leans towards "Fair Use"
2. If the nature of the copyrighted work is a fact or an idea rather than the presentation of facts or ideas, that leans towards "Fair Use"
3. If the amount and substantiality of the portion taken is minimal and is not the main point of the work, that leans towards "Fair Use"
4. If the effect of the use upon the potential market is expected to be minimal or non-existent, that leans towards "Fair use"
Updates to Copyright Law of the United States:
Do Creative Commons licenses affect exceptions and limitations to copyright, such as fair dealing and fair use?
"No. By design, CC licenses do not reduce, limit, or restrict any rights under exceptions and limitations to copyright, such as fair use or fair dealing."
When in doubt, Ask a Librarian

How "Fair Use" interacts with CC-licensed works

Although You May apply a CC license to your work if it incorporates material used under fair use or another exception or limitation to copyright your work
"...it is important to prominently mark any third party material you incorporate into your work so reusers do not think the CC license applies to that material. The CC license only applies to the rights you have in the work."

How "Fair Use" impacts the REUSE of CC-licensed works

“It may not be possible to release works under one of the CC licenses if you do not control all of the necessary rights”

You must clearly mark what part(s) of your mixed work are still protected by copyright. Although you may be able to use that part of the copyrighted work under "Fair Use", you can not guarantee that "Fair Use" will apply to the next user. If you do not clearly mark your mixed licensed content, you could mislead a re-user into misuse of another person's property.

Since it is incumbent on the reuser to determine whether other rights may impact their intended reuse of a work...
you should try to make that determination easy for the re-user as a courtesy and to make your mixed work usable in the open environment.