Is it &quot;fair use&quot; to summarize a movie?
<p>Could I take about, say, 15 minutes of clips from a movie to use as a visual (and perhaps using some audio) along with my originally written and voiced movie summary? Would the resulting work be considered transformative enough to be original?</p>
<p><strong>EDIT</strong></p>
<p>Here's a YouTube channel that does something similar to what I described: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyXD1jAZBdZ4u0K-GLYC77Q" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyXD1jAZBdZ4u0K-GLYC77Q</a>. Does this change anyone's opinion?</p>

<p>That depends very much on the specific details. But such a thing is more likely to be held to be fair use if it includes commentary on or criticism of the movie as well as a mere summary of it. Also, 15 minutes of clips seems like a lot, although there is no clear rule on how much can be reused under a claim of fair use. But if the point of the comment and summery could be well made with a shorter set of clips that might improve the claim of fair use. In general, a fair use will use no more of the source than is reasonable needed for the purpose, and will not serve as a substitute for the original work.</p>
<p>Being &quot;transformative&quot; is  <strong>very</strong> often cited in case law as strongly favoring fair use. It has nothing to do with making a derivative work original. Any derivative work gets a separate copyright if it has enough original content to satisfy the low requirements of copyright protection, which most such works do. Even an abridgement which adds nothing will generally get a separate copyright.</p>

<p>The factors of fair use are:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;</p>
</li>
<li><p>the nature of the copyrighted work;</p>
</li>
<li><p>the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and</p>
</li>
<li><p>the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>15 minutes summary seems to contradict most of those four factors. At least:</p>
<ul>
<li>15 minutes is a lot compared to a 1-2 hours long movie.</li>
<li>Since viewing a 15 minutes summary could be a substitute for viewing the movie, distributing it has a large effect upon the potential market value of the movie.</li>
<li>You don't seem to be making an educative work, just a shorter version of the same film for its entertainment value.</li>
</ul>
<p>IANAL, but it seems unlikely that you could claim fair use for such a summary.</p>
<p>Additionally, at the end of the question body you ask a different question, about whether the summary would be considered transformative enough to be original. The answer is that no amount of transformation alone makes a derivative work original (that is, non derivativa), and even less when the original work is essential for the derivative work, like in your summary.</p>
<p>That is quite unrelated to whether your usage of the movie parts fall under fair use, although transformation may help comply with fair use factors: the less from the original works that remain after transformation, the less portion you are actually using from it, and the less the market value of the underlying work is reduced.</p>

copyright fair-use