Vestigiality of fair use

“Fair use” is at best inconclusive. It does not solve the two real problems: 1) the increasing need of education science, government, and business for multiple copies of documents; and 2) the fact that since the copyright owner´s compensation is the total return from the use of his work, the loss through “fair use” of his work cannot be measured in terms of any individual use but only in terms of the total use and total copying. Therefore, we feel that the present provision for fair use, while making possible some types of research use of copyrighted material in computer and microfilm storage devices, cannot solve the “computer problem,” let alone the direct copying problem. At best, it will serve as a temporary safety valve for the user and eventually the courts, until some clearinghouse system is established. At that time, the concept of fair use should lose its importance and die off.