Law Commons^™

The 'Why' Of Markets: Copyright And Fair Use, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Jim Gibson is right that courts should be wary of letting the mere presence of licensing improperly foreclose the defense of fair use. 1 As he says, a court in a copyright infringement case should not treat the existence of a market for licenses of the work as a factor weighing against the defendant’s claim of fair use until the court has examined “why [that] licensing market exists.”2 However, Gibson fails to distinguish the varying reasons licensing might be relevant to a fair use determination. As a result, the solution he proffers— attributing relevance to licensing only in markets free …