Places (other than the college bookstore) you've used to purchase textbooks.

[clep3705]

The fair use argument is an old one that predates the internet. It was invoked by people who would use two VCRs to make a copy of a VHS tape. Before that, people would copy cassette tapes of music and claim fair use.

I completely sympathize with people struggling to make ends meet being faced with textbook expenses that can exceed the cost of tuition in some cases. Such a person has a bias to interpret fair use to prevent economic hardship. The US government copyright office has no such bias and seems to suggest a different interpretation.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ21.pdf
"c Copying shall not:
a substitute for the purchase of books, publishers’
reprints or periodicals;"

The document provides definitions of brevity. For example, one chapter from a book meets the brevity requirement. The document also explains the concept of cumulative effect which essentially says that you can't copy the entire body of work with some specific exceptions for short works such as poems.

It's sort of like free samples at the grocery store. You can't eat the entire turkey, cantaloupe, or whatever for free.