I thought I would forward this to ARLIS-L as it includes best practices and helpful criteria in determining fair use.

Best wishes,

The Dance Heritage Coalition has recently released a “Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use of Dance-Related Materials: Recommendations for Librarians, Archivists, Curators, and Other Collections Staff” in print (32 pp) and on its website at http://www.danceheritage.org/fairuse/DHC_fair_use_statement.pdf  .  One of our members, Sylvia Curtis at UCSB, along with Genie Guerard of UCLA’s YRL Special Collections and former head of UCI Special Collections Jackie Dooley, were involved in one of the eight regional focus groups which contributed to the report.  Although specific to dance, the report is an excellent resource for information about copyright in general and fair use in particular of performing arts materials, both by patrons and especially by librarians in creating exhibitions and  websites, format migration and preservation,  public performance, etc.