By Richard E. Neff, June 1, 2010: Reprinted and/or reposted with the permission of Daily Journal Corp. (2010). "Fair use" of copyrighted works is one of the least understood concepts in American jurisprudence. Users of others' works implicitly understand that there are certain uses that they can make of copyrighted works without violating the owner's or author's copyright. Indeed, Section 107 of the U.S. copyright law provides a list of fair use purposes, including criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research. It is a concept linked to both knowledge advancement and free speech. However, many people tend to make…