This is a good overview of fair use, creativity, and how journalists need to think about remix, public domain, and fair use.

BEST PRACTICES It helps enormously in doing so, of course, to know you are not alone. Here are some examples of communities helping each other to clarify interpretation of fair use in their areas: Journalists created a Set of Principles in Fair Use for Journalism, which lets them work in a digital and social media environment much more efficiently. DIY culture mavens got together to create a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use in Online Video to establish principles of fair use, for instance. Documentary filmmakers did the same, in the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use. (Their insurers now routinely insure for fair use claims, without even charging them more.) Poets did the same, and publishers have been able to use their judgments to publish work more efficiently (such as University of Chicago Press did with the book “Unoriginal Genius”). Librarians established their best practices in fair use, and immediately used it to put up online exhibits and to make usable copies of obsolescing videotapes languishing in their archives. Life has risks, and as you do riskier work, life gets riskier. But some risks are low, worthwhile, and really easy to assess, especially when you know what creative communities of practice typically do about it. Remixers can sample and share the fair use experience of creators in a wide variety of fields, as they make their own choices. Andy, keep on doing your amazing creative work. Keep employing fair use, the way you did in your video. And encourage your many friends in remix culture to do the same. The “Kind of Bloop“ experience was grisly. But it wasn’t typical.