Copyright and fair use are important issues in today's society, where mass piracy of copyrighted material occurs. A product is considered copyrighted “when something is put into 'tangible form,' the creator of the work owns a copyright” (Simpson, 2005). Such tangible forms include films, books, music, etc. (Simpson, 2005). Therefore, “copyright is the law of the United States that protects the works of authors, artists, composers, and others from use without permission” (Cyberbee, n.d.). This means that if you want to use more than a limited amount of copyrighted material, you will need to ask permission from the copyright owner (Richter, 2003). However, care must be taken, because the copyright sign does not need to be present for a work to be considered copyrighted (Cyberbee, n.d.). So, how does fair use play a role in copyright law? Fair use allows “an author to make limited use of another author's work without asking permission” (Nolo: Law for all, 2011). If you use copyrighted material beyond fair use, it is considered infringement. Infringement is basically a violation of copyright law; however, it has been stated that “the distinction between fair use and infringement may be unclear and not easily definable” (United State Copyright Office, 2009). To avoid the risk of infringement, there are guidelines that must be followed under the fair use doctrine. First of all, there are four questions to consider when using copyrighted material under the fair use doctrine: “purpose of use, nature of the work, proportion/extent of material used, and effect on merchantability” (Newsome, 2000). Purpose of use refers to the purpose for which the copyright owner's material will be used (for example, education). The nature of the work depends on the type of material used. For example, you need to ask whether “the copyrighted work, published or unpublished, is an out-of-print copyrighted work and is a factual or artistic work” (University of Maryland University College [UMUC], 2011) . to consider is the amount of copyrighted material used. However, the allowable quantities depend on the type and length of the material. For example, you can use ten percent or thirty seconds of a song (whichever is less) (Information Technology Evaluation Services: Public Schools of North Carolina, 1997).