James: Copyright law: the one area where writers confidently say “I looked it up” and then get it completely wrong. DianneP is here to help with that.
Claire: This episode follows a single thread — what writers actually get wrong about fair use, and why the answers are almost never as simple as the questions. Let’s start with the myth that a magic number of words makes copying legal.
~Fair Use Isn’t a Magic Phrase~
James: The question at the center of this post is one almost every writer has asked at some point — can you quote a song lyric, borrow a few lines, copy something brief, as long as you credit the source? The post argues the real answer is almost never a clean yes or no.
Claire: Part Two of the “Can I Do That?” series on the Current Words Publishing Substack sets up the stakes directly: “one of the biggest myths surrounding copyright: that there’s a magic number of words you can safely borrow.”
James: So the upshot is that the number itself is a fiction. Courts don’t count words — they weigh four factors, and “I only took a little” is not a defense on its own.
Claire: Right, and that four-factor analysis is the practical core of what the post walks through. The factors include things like the purpose of the use, the nature of the original work, how much was taken, and what effect that use has on the market for the original. None of them operate in isolation.
James: Which is the part that catches writers off guard. You can take three words and still have a problem. You can take a full paragraph and sometimes be fine. The test is contextual, not arithmetic.
Claire: The post also flags giving credit as another common misconception — attribution does not equal permission. Those are two separate questions, and conflating them is one of the more consequential mistakes a writer can make.
James: Knowing where fair use ends turns out to matter as much as knowing where it begins — which is exactly the kind of territory this series is built to map. The myth of the magic number is stubborn precisely because it’s so convenient.
Claire: It is. And the four-factor test exists because context matters more than counting. More on the territory ahead next time.