Fair Use as a Part of Copyright Law

Definition: There is one defense to copyright infringement called "fair use". It means the limited use of copyrighted material for instructional, review or other purposes. Whether this defense is effective would depend on factors including the ratio of the utilized material to the overall work. If a paragraph were quoted out of a novel, this might very well be covered by fair use, while quoting a paragraph out of a two paragraph written work might not.