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Fair use is an argument to explain why you violated the license/copyright. It relies on the fact that you did make a copy without permission.

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Fair use is not a copyright violation! It’s a limitation placed on copyright to balance the interests of copyright holders with the public interest.

It's seems just like a poor choice of words and semantic argument around the term "violate". Fair use is an affirmative defense — you concede you did this thing that would be illegal if not for this other extenuating information/circumstance. This is similar to claiming self-defense in a murder case — yes I killed that person, but it's not murder since I can show it was self-defense.

In this case it would be 'yes, I used this copyrighted work in a way that would be infringement were it not a fair use, but here's why it's fair-use.'

Thank you, yes - affirmative defense is exactly what I was trying to think of but couldn't remember.

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