What is copyright "fair use"?

Some of the answers seem to be assuming you're copying an index that the book already has. That would certainly be copyright infringement, though it would largely be pointless - the index is no use on its own without the book, but if you have a copy of the book, you have the original index anyway.

If the book didn't have its own index, and you created one, I don't see how that could be copyright infringement. It's essentially what Google does when they index the web. You can bet they didn't ask all those copyright owners for permission to compile their index.

Absolutely it is infringement. You would be stealing the work of the indexer, plus you are using copyrighted, published material.

"Fair use" is only using a short section of a work, and it usually does not apply at all if you are publishing something. You need to get the "rights" from the copyright holder or publisher to use anything. Fair use often applies in education, where a teacher can copy and distribute a limited amount of text for teaching purposes only.

Ken,

This is from the US Copyright Office:

Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work. Whether a particular use qualifies as fair use depends on all the circumstances. See FL 102, Fair Use, and Circular 21, Reproductions of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html...

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How much of someone else's work can I use without getting permission?

PJ M

You can't publish anything at all under "fair use". Fair use is intended to allow things like teachers using short segments of published works for comprehension tests for their class without having to buy a full text for each of them.

Not sure whether an index of names and page numbers is legal...but it certainly isn't legal because of the fair use laws.

Below is a link to the copyright laws and fair use.