Re: News about lawsuit against Georgia State Belvadi, Melissa 19 Apr 2008 15:45 UTC
If you read the actual filing, however, you'll see that the overwhelming majority of the complaint is about the use of multiple chapters from books. There are some articles included in the appendix, but the suit is mainly about book chapters in e-reserves and GSU's course management system. From the complaint, it does appear GSU went a bit overboard in how much of a single book they allowed to be digitized - much more than just one or two chapters in some cases. Also, it is quite possible that this case won't ever get to the merits of fair use, because of the "state sovereignty" issue surrounding suing a state government (a public university is part of the state government in the eyes of the US Supreme Court) under federal copyright law. And a federal district court has recently thrown out as unconstitutional an attempt by Congress to explicitly make state govts subject to copyright law: http://tinyurl.com/5tyqcn The biggest take-away message, however, may be: make sure that outsiders can't see your e-reserves! Apparently the publishers discovered all this because GSU carelessly left their e-reserves completely unprotected and open to the Internet for a long period of time, only closing it up after the publishers began to contact them. That interpretation is based solely on my reading of the actual filing by the plaintiffs. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Melissa Belvadi Systems and Services Librarian Maryville University 650 Maryville University Dr. St. Louis, MO 63141 mbelvadi@maryville.edu ph: 314-529-9531 fax: 314-529-9941 -----Original Message----- From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Rick C. Mason Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 1:37 PM To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: Re: [SERIALST] News about lawsuit against Georgia State The url was cut in two by the line wrap; that may have been the cause of your "Page cannot be found" error. Here is a shortened url: http://tinyurl.com/6ajsbm In short, several publishers (Oxford, Cambridge, and SAGE) are suing Georgia State University for copyright infringement. The university has been providing digital articles through coursepacks without obtaining authorization, according to the publishers. It reminds me quite a bit of the Kinko's lawsuit, and will possibly help to define what is and isn't permitted when working with electronic articles. We shall see... Rick Rick Mason Acquisitions Assistant Blackmore Library Capital University 1 College and Main Columbus, OH 43209-2394 (614) 236-6353 rmason2@capital.edu -----Original Message----- From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Skwor, Jeanette Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 8:51 AM To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: Re: [SERIALST] News about lawsuit against Georgia State I keep getting "Page cannot be found" messages from this, and the several permutations of it I thought might be helpful. Can you either correct if or tell us what it is? Thanks, Jeanette L. Skwor Cofrin Library, Serials Dept. UW-Green Bay 2420 Nicolet Drive Green Bay, WI 54311 -----Original Message----- From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Hutchens, Chad Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 2:40 PM To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: [SERIALST] News about lawsuit against Georgia State Apologies for cross-listing...I ran across this on a state listserv. I guess this was bound to happen at some time. http://www.publishers.org/main/PressCenter/GeorgiaStateLawsuitRelease.ht m Chad E. Hutchens Electronic Resources Librarian Montana State University Libraries P.O. Box 173320 Bozeman, MT 59717-3320 (406) 994-4313 phone (406) 994-2851 fax chutchens@montana.edu