Fair Use: Articulating the Liberal Approach

Within the context of Cambridge University Press et al. v. Patton et al., this article provides the rationale for the academic distribution of scholarly articles without requesting copyright permission or paying the corresponding fees. The fair use of scholarly articles is examined legally, historically, and in an economic context. This article builds upon the market failure model of fair use and fundamental models from economic anthropology to illuminate the underlying conflict between market and reciprocal economies. Fair use is presented as a limiter to market economy when, for socially sanctioned purposes, reciprocal economies yield greater utility to society.