Ruling Handed Down in GSU Copyright Case

A ruling in the copyright infringement suit against Georgia State University was announced May 11, with the judge rejecting 95% of the specific readings challenged by the publishers that took GSU to court.

The judge also outlined the ways institutions can continue to cite the “fair use” doctrine when making electronic copies of material for use in classes and rejected publishers’ contentions about how to regulate e-reserves. However, she also imposed strict limits about how much of a book may be covered by fair use and that a publisher may have claims against university e-reserves if that publisher offers reasonably priced systems for getting permission to use book excerpts online.

Examinations of the decision started almost immediately. Kevin Smith, the scholarly communications officer at Duke University, blogged about the decision mere hours after it was released. Posts also appeared on the Inside Higher Education web site from editor Scott Jaschick and Barbara Fister, a librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College, before the sun was up on Mother’s Day morning. The Chronicle of Higher Education also chimed in.

Appeals appear to be certain, but in the meantime, neither side goes away completely happy with the decision.

Fair Use Copyright Lawsuit

Faulkner Press v. Class Notes  d/b/a/ “Einstein Notes”

There is an interesting lawsuit concerning copyright infringement pending in a Florida district court concerning the sharing of course information and may answer the question of whether sharing of course materials actually qualifies as fair use.

Professor Michael Moulton, a faculty member at University of Florida published an e-book version of his lectures notes and slides through Faulkner publishing.  He had also registered this information with the copyright office.  The lawsuit was filed after the lecture outlines and film study questions prepared by Professor Moulton were copied and packeted for resale by a local copy shop. The professor had transferred his copyrights in the materials to a publisher, who filed the infringement action. This past June, the district court ruled on the cross motions for summary judgment.  Recognizing that the text materials were protected by copyright, the court wrote:

“The parties have presented various arguments for and against a finding of fair use. Genuine issues of material fact remain for a jury to determine regarding fair use.”

The consequence of this case, much like the outcome in the Georgia State e-reserves lawsuit, has the possibility to greatly impact our understanding and application of fair use.  It will also impact the validity of sites similar to Course Hero and any other entity profiting from the sharing of course materials.

Copyright and Course Materials

Here’s a story  that might be of interest to campus bookstores especially as custom coursepacks become more commonplace and as faculty incorporate more of their original materials into these coursepacks. 

The story talks about how distribution of course notes, lecture recordings, and exam copies has become an emergent commercial enterprise by brick and mortar and online entities.  

As this happens more often, many professors are concerned that their unique and creative work product, such as stylized lecture slides, detailed course materials, and syllabi, are being made accessible without their knowledge or permission.   To help counter the problem, universities have adopted policies prohibiting students from sharing course materials. 

For example, University of Virginia has recently implemented a policy related to recording of classroom lectures and distribution of course materials by students.  This policy states that recordings, course materials, and lecture notes may not be exchanged or distributed for commercial purposes, for compensation, or for any other purpose other than study by students enrolled in the class. Public distribution of such materials may constitute copyright infringement in violation of federal or state law, or University policy. Violation of this policy may subject a student to disciplinary action under the University’s Standards of Conduct. 

Other schools like Cornell have devised informational sites for faculty to assist them in locating infringing downloads and requesting take-down.  Cornell website lists these websites that are known to redistribute course materials.

• Course Hero http://www.coursehero.com/
• Rock My Midterm http://rockmymt.com/
• ScribD http://www.scribd.com/
• Notehall http://www.notehall.com/
• Koofers http://www.koofers.com/
• CampusBuddy http://www.campusbuddy.com/

Copyright Office's Priorities for 2011-2013

The United States Copyright Office released a report on the Office’s priorities and focus subject areas for the over next two years with respect to copyright policy and administrative practice and a series of new projects designed to improve the quality and efficiency of its services in the twenty-first century.   The Office’s policy priorities for the next 24 months are as follows, subject to new developments in the United States and abroad.  Some of the notable items, according to the Register, includes streamlining litigation, perhaps even a recommendation for a special venue for copyright litigation, Orphan Works, and Library exemptions.

STUDIES

Small claims solutions for copyright owners

Legal treatment of pre-1972 sound recordings

Mass book digitization

LEGISLATIVE WORK

Rogue websites

Illegal streaming

Public performance right in sound recordings

Orphan works

Copyright exceptions for libraries

Market-based licensing for cable an d satellite retransmission

TRADE AND FOREIGN RELATIONS

World intellectual property organization (wipo)

Trans-pacific partnership and other trade priorities

Priorities in Administrative law Practice

Prohibition on circumvention of measures controlling access to copyrighted works

Electronic system for the designation of agents under the dmca

Review of group registration options

Registration options for websites and other forms of digital authorship

Electronic administration of the statutory licenses

Recording notices of termination of copyright transfers

Special Projects

Study of fees and services

Revision of the compendium of copyright office practices

Technical upgrades to electronic registration

Dialogues and roundtables with copyright community

Research partnerships with academic community

Revision of copyright office website

Public outreach and copyright education

Business process reengineering of recordation division

Public access to historical records

Skills training for copyright office staff

UCLA Cleared of Copyright Infringement

University of California at Los Angeles recently prevailed in a copyright infringement lawsuit for streaming videos online.

According to the Chronicle, one copyright expert thinks the UCLA decision helps the HathiTrust digital-library consortium in its copyright lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild over the digitization of books from university libraries.

The Association for Information Media and Equipment (AIME) and Ambrose Video Publishing filed the lawsuit against UCLA for streaming a Shakespeare play for faculty and students to use as part of curriculum.  The plaintiffs asserted that UCLA violated copyright and breached its contract by duplicating DVD’s of the play that was acquired from Ambrose.

The judge in the case held that UCLA had not waived its constitutional “sovereign immunity,” a principle that prevents state universities from being sued without their consent in federal court.  The court also found that the association did not own the copyrights and therefore did not establish its standing to bring the case.

Chronicle interviewed James Grimmelmann, an associate professor at New York Law School who commented that “universities will have a little more breathing room for using media,” and “this decision will make the Authors Guild case against HathiTrust more of a long shot.”  “If the HathiTrust suit were to be decided tomorrow by the same court, it would be dismissed.” Mr. Grimmelmann says.

Further, Chronicle also quoted Kevin Smith, Duke University’s scholarly-communications officer, who says “because much of the dismissal hung on the sovereign-immunity question, “a major part of the decision applies only to state entities” and “does not translate to private universities.”

Copyright licensing on campus

Here is an interesting project going on at Stanford University. It is called the Stanford IP Exchange (SIPX) and the system is intended to provide tailored copyright licenses on campus. The project includes both print on demand (POD) and publishing on demand technologies, and addresses a problem we have heard from faculty at various institutions.  The custom coursepack business is, of course, a solid percentage of the textbook market, and is likely to increase in the future with many comparable initiatives underway.  This project has some interesting elements to it, however, and is another worth watching.