Fair use, honestly

Where we actually stand

Almost everything in this library came from somewhere. Memes circulate by being copied, and a meme is very often a frame of somebody’s film carrying somebody else’s words. We did not make most of what is here and we do not claim to own it.

We think a searchable, captioned, credited library of cultural reference is a good thing to exist, and much of what it does sits comfortably inside how people have always quoted films at each other. We also think a site that answers every copyright question with “fair use” is not being straight with anybody. Both of those are true at once, which is why this page exists.

What fair use actually is

In United States law, fair use is a defence, not a permission. It means that if you are sued you may be able to show your use was lawful. It does not mean permission was never needed. Courts weigh four things, and no single one decides it:

• The purpose of the use. Commentary, criticism, parody and transformation weigh in favour. Simply republishing something because it is popular does not.
• The nature of the original. Using factual work weighs more favourably than using creative work, and a film is creative work.
• How much was taken. A few seconds of a scene weighs better than the scene, and better still if it is not the part the whole thing is famous for.
• The effect on the market. Whether the use competes with the original, or with the rights holder’s ability to license it.

Other countries do not have fair use at all. The United Kingdom and much of the Commonwealth have fair dealing, which is narrower and lists the permitted purposes rather than weighing factors. Nigeria’s Copyright Act has its own exceptions. A site reaching readers in all of those is not covered by any single one of them.

What fair use does not do

• It does not make something free to use because it is short, because it is old, or because it is everywhere already.
• It does not follow from crediting the source. Credit is courtesy, and it is worth doing, but it is not a licence.
• It does not follow from making no money. Non-commercial use weighs in your favour and does not decide the question.
• It does not cover using somebody’s face or performance to advertise something, which is a different area of law again.
• It does not transfer. Our position about this library says nothing about what you do with a file after you download it.

What we do about it

Every item records what is known about where it came from. Where nothing is known, it says so rather than implying otherwise. Most of this library arrived in bulk and the record is thin, which we would rather state than paper over.

Readers can fill the gaps in. Anyone signed in can propose the film, the year and the story behind a meme, and a moderator checks it before it goes on the page. A library that knows where its material is from is both more useful and easier to defend.

A takedown is answered by a person, quickly. The copyright page has the form, and an actioned notice removes the item from the live site in about a minute. We do not require a lawyer, a letterhead, or an argument about fair use before acting.

We would rather have permission than a defence. Where a creator can be identified and asked, asking is better than relying on a doctrine that only gets tested when something has already gone wrong. Creators who want their work in a library that credits it, and out of one that does not, can reach us either way.

If something here is yours

Use the copyright page. You do not need an account and you do not need to explain fair use to us. Tell us what it is and where it is, and it comes down.

If you would rather it stayed and were credited properly, say so. That is a conversation we would prefer to have, and one that is hard to have after a takedown.

If you are the one downloading

What you send in a group chat is between you and the people in it, and nobody sensible is coming after a private joke. Putting a clip in an advertisement, on merchandise, or in something you sell is a different thing entirely, and this library gives you no rights to do it. If a file matters to what you are making, find out who owns it.