How many pages can you copy from a book without violating copyright law?

Answer 1

Each "fair use" is established on a case by case basis. There is no predetermined amount of copyrighted material that can be used.

US Copyright Law sets out criteria that has to be considered before something can be judged to be "fair use"

# The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes # The nature of the copyrighted work # The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole # The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

Answer 2

None assuming, of course, this use is beyond the scope of "fair use" or other exception to current copyright law. There is no minimum or maximum of a copyrighted work that you can "get away with" using. If you use a recognizable snippet of a copyrighted song, passage from a written work, portion of a recognizable illustration/photograph, etc. you are guilty of infringement.

Answer 3

There is no predetermined amount of copyrighted material that can be used before it's considered an infringement. Each case is judged by the planned use & it's purpose.

US Copyright Law sets out for criteria that have to be considered before something can be determined to be "fair use"

# The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes # The nature of the copyrighted work # The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole # The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

Answer 4

There is no set limit. Prior court cases have based their decision on how important the excerpted portion is to the "heart of the work".

A famous case will illustrate what I mean.

The Nation magazine published a review of former President Gerald Fords' autobiography & directly quoted only 300 words from the entire book. They were sued for copyright infringement & lost.

The court based their decision on the fact that the 300 words used were about the pardon of Richard Nixon and were outside the "fair use" exception because they were published with the intent to "scoop" the authorized first book publication.