2017 Articles

Session IV: Fair Use and Other Exceptions (Lital Helman)

Helman, Lital

My talk will address the adoption of the fair use doctrine into Israeli Law. I will offer Israel as an example that shows that it is possible to adopt the Fair Use doctrine into legal systems outside of the United States while maintaining desired features of the pre-adoption regime. Some of these features tackle the issues that were discussed earlier in this panel, such as the uncertainty and the ex-post concerns that the fair use regime entails. Notably, and although I will not expand on this point in this talk, the Israeli example is particularly interesting because the 2007 Copyright Act, which “imported” the Fair Use doctrine, was passed after the digital revolution occurred. This timing allowed the Israeli legislature to consider issues that in other countries had to be addressed by the courts ex post facto.