Fair dealing with a work for the purpose of criticism
or review (such as a book review) of that or
another work or of a performance of a dramatic work, does not infringe copyright, provided that it is
accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement (usually bibliographical details) and provided that
the work has been made available to the public. Accordingly, there is not fair dealing exception
for
criticism and review of an unpublished work.
For the use of extracts from literary works for the purpose
of criticism or review, the Society of
Authors (www.societyofauthors.net) has issued the following guidelines:
- A
single extract of up to 400 words or a series of extracts (of which none exceeds 300
words) to a total of 800 words from a prose work
- Extracts
to a total of 40 lines from a poem, provided this does not exceed a quarter of the
poem
Fair dealing with a work (other than a photograph) for
the purpose of reporting current events does
not infringe any copyright in the work provided that it is accompanied by a sufficient
acknowledgement.
‘Fair dealing’ for the purposes of ‘criticism
or review’ may apply if short extracts of copyright
material are posted on an intranet or possibly the Internet, but the purpose must be that of criticism
or review and not use of the extracts solely for anthologising or illustrative purposes.
