The "Fair Use" Doctrine in Nepal: What Educational Institutions and Media Need to Know

Fair use vs fair dealing: the doctrinal difference

American fair use is open-ended: courts weigh purpose, nature, amount and effect — anything can, in principle, be fair. Nepal's Copyright Act follows the closed-list tradition (like the UK's 'fair dealing'): specific exceptions for specific purposes, with conditions — and what is not listed is not permitted, however reasonable it seems. The vocabulary matters because imported assumptions ('it's educational', 'we credited them') have no legal force here unless they fit a listed exception.

The Act's exception list, in substance: private/personal use (a copy for yourself, not your classroom); educational uses by institutions within statutory limits (teaching activities, examination questions — the Act's specific provisions); criticism, review and news reporting with attribution; judicial proceedings; and library/specific statutory allowances within conditions. Each exception is purpose-limited and condition-bound — the conditions are where institutions get into trouble.

• No open-ended fair use — a closed list of enumerated exceptions
• Each exception is purpose-limited; conditions decide legality
• 'Educational' and 'credited' are not magic words

For educational institutions: what's covered, what's not

Covered (within conditions): teaching activities' classroom use; examination questions; library copies within the statutory allowances. Not covered: systematic course-pack copying (compiling readings for distribution — licensing territory); screening films at events (even campus events — licensing territory); playing music at institution-hosted commercial or public events (public performance rights); adapting works for teaching materials without permission (adaptation is an author's right); uploading copyrighted materials to LMS platforms beyond the exceptions' scope.

The institutional to-do: licence the systematic uses (course materials through publisher/licensing arrangements; blanket licences where available), audit the LMS and print practices against the exceptions' actual conditions, prefer licensed digital resources, and paper the arrangements with publishers and rights-holders. Nepalese enforcement against universities is historically rare — but the exceptions are narrow, institutions are visible, international partnerships (accreditation, MOOCs, publisher contracts) import foreign standards, and 'rarely enforced' is not a defence in the dispute that finally arrives.

For media: reporting, criticism, and the licence line

Protected by the exception: news reporting and criticism/review with attribution — the newspaper's quote from a book under review, the film critic's clips within genuine review, the news report's excerpts. The conditions: attribution given, use proportionate to the purpose, and the use genuinely for reporting/criticism — not a format wearing its costume. Beyond the line: entertainment programming using substantial copyrighted material; music-heavy formats (the montage, the lip-sync segment); monetised content whose 'review' is a wrapper; adapting works into formats without permission (the novelisation, the web-series adaptation).

The platform overlay makes media practice stricter still: a YouTube review that Nepalese law might tolerate gets claimed by Content ID regardless — which is why clearance discipline (licensed music, short transformed clips, substantial commentary) is the operational rule even where the law might be kinder. The licence line, drawn honestly: if the use substitutes for the original's market — someone watches your video instead of buying the song — it's licensing territory everywhere.

The compliance posture that ends the anxiety

For both audiences, the sustainable position is the same: treat exceptions as narrow refuges, licences as the default. Institutions: licence the systematic uses, train staff on the exceptions' actual conditions, and keep the licence file with the course materials. Media: attribute genuinely, keep the reporting/criticism purpose real, licence the entertainment uses, and document the clearance. Both: when in doubt, the permission is usually cheaper than the dispute — rights-holders in Nepal generally license willingly, and the asking is the compliance.

Nepal's copyright framework will keep developing (the Bill-era reform cycle, international pressure, the creative economy's growth), and the exceptions' interpretation will evolve with case law. The institutions and media houses that built licensing-first cultures will not need to litigate any of it — which is the entire point of compliance.