The concept of fair use is applied under certain limited conditions described in the Copyright Law. For educators this means the use of excerpts of copyrighted works for certain educational purposes and under specific conditions.
Fair use is a privilege .
Up until the ever-present use of inexpensive copies, the concept of fair use was unchallenged by content providers. That has changed. Copyright is a Constitutional guarantee with the express idea in it for the dissemination of ideas and information. Fair use is a legislated privilege which provides for the dissemination of those ideas and information.