But you need to keep the spirit of the law in mind. The law gives you rights of ownership over your creative works, ideally to encourage their development and publication. Your exclusive rights are intended to foster your creative energies. The same principle also supports rights of fair use. No intellectual achievement occurs in a vacuum.
All new creativity builds on the efforts that have gone before.
Fair use is intended to further those essential gains without stifling the original author s incentives. No one has drawn absolute lines around the scope of fair use, and not everyone will agree whether the law serves its purpose. Yet the copyright system is an important attempt to spearhead greater intellectual accomplishment. Keep in mind not only its rigors, mandates, and procedures, but its opportunities and encouragement as well. If thoughtfully applied, copyright can be an important part of your new contributions to scholarship.