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fair use
noun
: a legal doctrine that portions of copyrighted materials may be used without permission of the copyright owner provided the use is fair and reasonable, does not substantially impair the value of the materials, and does not curtail the profits reasonably expected by the owner
Examples of fair use in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
There are also a bunch of cases pending in US courts on issues regarding fair use of content scraped for use in AI models, copyright protections for AI content and related topics.
—Rob Salkowitz, Forbes, 10 Jan. 2025
If federal courts determine that training LLMs on publicly available data is not fair use, then using intellectual property to train LLMs will require the permission of creators—and very likely, compensation.
—David Pakman, Fortune, 4 Oct. 2024
Still, the character is now available to play the hero or the villain in a slasher film — a la Winnie the Pooh — if some enterprising filmmaker wants to take advantage of the fair use.
—Daniel Kreps, Rolling Stone, 1 Jan. 2025
Apparently largely unintentional, the sloppy practice is seemingly dragging out early court battles that could determine whether AI training is fair use.
—Ars Technica, 25 Nov. 2024
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Word History
First Known Use
1847, in the meaning defined above
Dictionary Entries Near fair use
Cite this Entry
“Fair use.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fair%20use. Accessed 18 Jan. 2025.
Legal Definition
fair use
see use sense 2
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