Fair Use of Copyrighted Materials in Education and Research in Oman and Around the World

The concept of fair use for education is incorporated in copyright laws to strike a balance between the private interests of copyright holders and the public interests of students and researchers to use the copyrighted materials in furthering their knowledge. While fair use of a copyrighted materials for the purpose of study and research is permitted under copyright laws everywhere in the world, the limit of such use is not clearly demarcated in these laws. Can a student copy an entire textbook for the purpose of study? What about few chapters from the same textbook? Or, one chapter each from five different textbooks for five different topics in a course? What if the book is not a textbook but used as an additional reference? Instead of students making the copy, what if the instructor of the course makes the copy through scanning and leaves the scanned copy for the students in a restricted website? What if the purpose of the copying is not to distribute the materials among the students but for the instructor?s own use to prepare for lectures or to undertake research? Would our answer to the above questions be different if there are other users of the book outside educational institutions? These are the questions the paper will attempt to answer in light of the existing legal provisions and case law from Oman and around the world.