If Hip-Hop Were Classified and the Pentagon Papers Had Been Copyrighted: An Analysis of Whether the Fair Use Defense in Copyright Law is Broad Enough to Protect First Amendment Concerns

This paper will show that copyright law conflicts with the First Amendment in that the fair use doctrine is insufficient to protect the fundamental rights and interests that underlie the First Amendment\u27s protection of speech. To do this, the paper will examine three primary justifications of the First Amendment: individual liberty, the marketplace of ideas, and political participation. The paper will also analyze multiple situations, in which parties bring copyright suits and the defendants claim fair use, to determine whether the fair use doctrine protects the First Amendment. This paper will show that if one accepts either a marketplace of ideas or a personal expression justification for the First Amendment, copyright law will lead to unacceptable results. The limited purpose of copyright cannot justify the inroads into the Bill of Rights from copyright law