Copyright

In their motion for partial judgment on the pleadings, Plaintiffs in Authors Guild v. HathiTrust advance a radical and unprecedented interpretation of 17 U.S.C. § 108 that threatens the most routine library operations.

amicus-hathi-trust-20apr12.pdf

fair-use-code-key-articles.pdf

fair-use-code-faq-libs.pdf

Memorandum discussing legal issues in website archiving.

 band-new-day-for-archiving-2.0-23feb12.pdf

Flyer discussing the advantages of an approach to determining fair use that is rooted in professional consensus, rather than (for example) negotiating standards with right holders or consulting legal experts.

fair-use-code-academic-research.pdf

The ability to make reasonable "fair use" of copyrighted material is both economically and culturally important to the enterprise of education. In asserting fair use, teachers, librarians, and others cannot rely on a claim of "educational exceptionalism," for which there is no clear basis in U.S. Copyright law. Instead, they should seek to take advantage of current trends in copyright caselaw, including the marked trend toward preferring uses that are "transformative," where the amount of content used is appropriate to the transformative purpose. Over twenty years, we have accumulated considerable information about what constitutes "transformativeness," and members of the education community are well-positioned to provide persuasive narratives explaining how educational uses significantly repurpose and add value to the copyrighted content they incorporate. Published in Law & Literature, Vol. 24 No. 3 (Fall 2012).

jaszi-education-and-fair-use.pdf

On January 13, 2012, the Supreme Court by a 6-2 vote affirmed the Tenth Circuit decision in Golan v. Holder. The case concerned the constitutionality of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), which restored copyright in foreign works that had entered into the public domain because the copyright owners had failed to comply with formalities such as notice; or because the U.S. did not have copyright treaties in place with the country at the time the work was created (e.g., the Soviet Union)

golan_summary_06feb12.pdf

Flyer discussing copyright education and academic integrity codes.

Code-brief-copyright-education-2012.pdf

Announcement that of ARL's joint project with the Center for Social Media at American University, and the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property in American University's Washington College of Law, to prepare a code of best practices in fair use for academic and research libraries.

fair-use-code-1pager.pdf

Several "official" and formal guidelines that attempt to define the scope of fair use for specific applications—notably for education, research, and library services—have emerged in the years since passage of the Copyright Act of 1976. Although some interested parties and some governmental agencies have welcomed these guidelines, none of them ever has had the force of law. This article analyzes the origins of guidelines, the various governmental documents and court rulings that reference the guidelines, and the substantive content of the guidelines themselves to demonstrate that in fact the guidelines bear little relationship, if any, to the law of fair use.

fair-use-code-crews.pdf

fair-use-code-faq-profs.pdf

fair-use-code-faq-students.pdf

This Note from the Harvard Law Review organizes research on pro-social motivation around the motivation-fostering effects of empowerment, community, and fairness. By incorporating these norms into the cultural architecture of the public domain, we can promote greater information production at less cost than by relying solely on the intellectual property system's traditional tools of exclusion.

fair-use-code-harvard.pdf

Discusses copyright and its problems, why librarians need useable fair use, and the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries

fair-use-code-slides-lib.pdf

Discusses why students need to understand fair use, copyright and its problems, how codes of best practices help

fair-use-code-slides-student.pdf

Memorandum from Bernard J. Knight, Jr. discussing the application of the fair use doctrine to the use of non-patent literature (NPL) in the patent examination process.

fair-use-code-uspto.pdf

Flyer discussing fair use and the reproduction of material for use by disabled students, faculty, staff, and other appropriate users.

Code-brief-chaffee-amendment-2012.pdf

Argues the value of the Code of Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries to help librarians determine fair use guidelines for their institutions.

fair-use-code-cost-of-conservatism.pdf

Letter thanking representatives for their "advocacy of First Amendment rights and the value of an open and secure Internet during last week's markup of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)."

lca_thanks_markuprev21dec11.pdf

Letter from the Library Copyright Alliance encouraging the release of a discussion draft bill to address the problem of foreign infringing websites.

lca_letteropenact_12dec11.pdf

Comments of the Library Copyright Alliance and the Music Library Association.

noi1201comments05.pdf

Library Copyright Alliance letter to John Conyers and Lamar Smith.

lca-sopa-08nov11.pdf

Presented at the 159th ARL Membership Meeting, October 2011.

mm11fall-farb.pdf

There is long-standing interest in identifying orphan works, books that are subject to copyright but whose copyright holders cannot be identified or contacted. Orphan works comprise a significant percentage of ARL collections, and there is deep interest in making these works discoverable and more accessible. Recently, the University of Michigan announced the initiation of the Orphan Works Project. The focus of the project is on US digitized books held by HathiTrust, a partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to ensure that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future.

resource_orphanworks_13sept11.pdf

RLI issue 276 includes:

• Ahead of the Storm: Research Libraries and the Future of the Research University
• Collecting Small Data
• Copyfraud and Classroom Performance Rights: Two Common Bogus Copyright Claims

Statement from ARL and other associations arguing that, while copyright promotes creativity, many of the specific measures adopted or recently proposed to protect copyright in the digital age actually impede innovative technologies and services.

balanced-copyright-statement.pdf

In the wake of Judge Chin's rejection of the Google Books Settlement, there has been a renewed interest in legislative solutions to a variety of copyright issues affecting libraries, including those implicating the mass digitization of books, the use of orphan works, and the modernization of 17 U.S.C. §108 (particularly preservation). The Library Copyright Alliance, comprised of the American Library Association (ALA), the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), has several general comments on possible efforts to address these issues via legislation.

lca_copyrightreformstatement_16may11.pdf

Presented at the 158th ARL Membership Meeting, May 2011.

mm11sp-smith.pdf

Presented at the 158th ARL Membership Meeting, May 2011.

mm11sp-band.pdf

ARL comments to the FTC on the proposed consent agreement, specifically, regarding privacy issues raised by the Google Books product, which involves both searching and selling books.

gbs-privacycomments_26apr11.pdf