Fair Dealing under the Copyright Act

Fair dealing is a limitation on copyright that permits certain uses of protected works without the copyright owner's permission. Under Section 52(1)(a) of the Copyright Act, 1957, the dealing must both serve a specified purpose and be fair in the circumstances; merely naming a permitted purpose does not automatically excuse infringement.

Purposes that qualify

Fair dealing with any work, other than a computer programme, is permitted only for the purposes listed in the provision.

• Private or personal use, including research, qualifies as a permitted purpose.
• Criticism or review may concern the work used or any other work.
• Reporting current events and current affairs qualifies, including reporting a lecture delivered in public.

Conditions and digital application

The use must constitute fair dealing as well as fall within one of the listed purposes. Section 52 does not prescribe a fixed permissible percentage, so the label of research, criticism or reporting does not by itself make every reproduction lawful.

• Storing a work in an electronic medium for a qualifying purpose is covered, including incidental storage of a computer programme that is not itself an infringing copy.
• A computer programme is excluded from the general fair-dealing clause, although Section 52 separately provides limited exceptions concerning computer programmes.

Distinction from other copyright exceptions

Section 52 also protects several specifically defined acts, such as certain uses in judicial proceedings, education, libraries and accessible-format production. These are separate statutory exceptions and should not all be described as the three purposes of fair dealing under Section 52(1)(a).

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