As copyright law has developed during this century, the duration of copyrights has been changed several times. Generally today, a work by a single author remains copyrighted until 70 years after the author's death. Works with multiple authors, anonymous authors, or those owned by organizations last for 95 years, a recent change. There are exceptions. Once the applicable period has expired, the work reverts to the public domain.
Fair use is widely misunderstood, and often claimed when there is no basis for it.
There are certain narrowly specified fair use exceptions under which copies may be made of portions of a work. The least restrictive are for educational applications, but small portions of a work may be copied for the purposes of news reporting, criticism, and parody. Fair use does NOT depend on whether you make a profit from your copies. For more information, see this Nolo Press article on Fair Use . A very fuzzy area in the law is the area of implied consent.