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.
