Problems of free use of works in the Internet

Copyright law traditionally has certain exceptions and limitations to exclusive right which are necessary for balancing interests of right holder and society. Development of information technologies causes appearance of new online services and users’ facilities in interactions with copyrighted works on the Internet. In this connection, there is a problem of adapting the cases of free use to realities of the digital age, in particular to use of copyrighted works within different online services. This paper seeks to explore the tendencies of development of free use institution in digital age and to estimate the necessity of modernization of the copyright legislation to correspond with the level of technological development and to protect the interests of society and users. For achieving the goals, I analyze the doctrine, legislation and cases of the USA, European Union and Russia concerning correspondence the cases of free use with content reproduction within online services, in particular with copying in cloud storage; with use of orphan works by different subjects and with news aggregators activity. In the process of work, I have revealed the tendency of limitation of free use on the Internet in favor of protection the rights and interests of authors and other right holders. Free use applies for achieving socially useful goals while its adaptation to different online services is limited what causes the service providers decide the appearing problems on contractual and technical levels.