When can an artist or art historian use a photo she snapped in a museum for teaching? Can a museum reproduce an image from an exhibition of contemporary art in a related brochure without licensing it? How can fair use simplify the permissions process in publications? Can an archive put images from its collection online—and if so, with what restrictions? The copyright doctrine of fair use, which permits use of unlicensed copyrighted material, has great utility in the visual arts. But for too long, it’s been hard to understand how to interpret this rather abstract part of the law. The newly created Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Visual Arts, produced by the College Art Association, makes it much easier to employ fair use to do visual arts scholarship, art practice, teaching, exhibitions, digital displays, and more.

Join Peter Jaszi, lead principal investigator and professor of law, American University Washington College of Law, as he explains how the Code of Best Practices works, how it was created, and why it’s reliable. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A moderated by art, entertainment, and museum attorney Walter G. Lehmann.

About the Speaker

Peter Jaszi is a professor of law at American University Washington College of Law, where he teaches copyright law and courses in law and cinema. He also supervises students in the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic, which he helped to established, along with the Program on Intellectual Property and Information Justice. He has served as a trustee of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. and is a member of the editorial board of its journal. In 2007, Jaszi received the American Library Association’s L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award, and in 2009 the Intellectual Property Section of the District of Columbia Bar honored him as the year’s Champion of Intellectual Property. He has written about copyright history and theory and coauthored a standard copyright textbook. Jaszi is a graduate of Harvard Law School (JD) and Harvard University (AB).