Court Cases

Motion of International Documentary Association, American Library Association, Association of Research Libraries, Association of College and Research Libraries and The WGBH Educational Foundation For Leave To File An Amici Curiae Brief in Support of Defendants-Appellees' Petition For Rehearing or Rehearing En Banc

amicus_bouchatvravens092010.pdf

Comments from Comments ARL, ALA, and EDUCAUSE in support of rulemaking to preserve the openness of the Internet.

comments_fccpublicnotice_12oct10.pdf

Comments from the Center for Democracy and Technology highlight the importance of liability protections for online intermediaries and the way these protections serve to maintain the Internet as a robust platform both for the free flow of information and for trade.

cdt-comments-openaccess-06dec10.pdf

Brief of Amici Curiae Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics In Washington, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, the National Security Archive, and Openthegovernment.Org in Support of Petitioners.

amicus-fcc-v-att-16nov10.pdf

Brief Amici Curiae of the American Library Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries, and the Association of Research Libraries in Support of Petitioner.

amicus-lca-costco08jul10.pdf

On December 13, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Costco v. Omega in a manner that eliminated none of the uncertainty caused by the lower court's ruling in that case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had ruled that the copyright law's "first sale doctrine" did not apply to copies manufactured abroad. This ruling cast doubt on a library's ability to circulate books and other materials manufactured outside of the United States.

lca-costco-31jan11.pdf

This is a copyright infringement case brought against various officials of the University System of Georgia, including officials of Georgia State University. Plaintiffs are three publishing houses who claim that Defendants are responsible for infringement of their copyrighted works. They complain of Georgia State's practice of allowing professors and other instructors to utilize electronic systems to reproduce and distribute excerpts from copyrighted works for academic use by Georgia State students, without paying copyright fees to them. Plaintiffs seek injunctive and declaratory relief.

gsu-fairuse-order-30sept10.pdf

On July 28, 2010, SkyRiver Technology Solutions joined with Innovative Interfaces to file suit in San Francisco federal court against OCLC Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) alleging numerous anticompetitive business practices and antitrust violations. SkyRiver, a bibliographic services company, and Innovative Interfaces, a library automation company, claim that OCLC is "unlawfully monopolizing the bibliographic data, cataloguing service and interlibrary lending markets and is attempting to monopolize the market for integrated library systems by anticompetitive and exclusionary agreements, policies and practices." (p. 1) The outcome of the lawsuit could have significant impact on the library software and technology services industry by opening up OCLC's services, such as WorldCat, to use by commercial competitors. ARL members have asked for a review of the current state of the suit.

skyriver-oclc-antitrust29nov10.pdf

On Friday, November 13, 2009, Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers filed an Amended Settlement Agreement (ASA) in the copyright infringement litigation concerning the Google Library Project. The amendments proposed by the parties are designed to address objections made by the U.S. Department of Justice and copyright holders to the original proposed settlement agreement. While many of the amendments will have little direct impact on libraries, the ASA significantly reduces the scope of the settlement because it excludes most books published outside of the United States. This paper describes the ASA's major changes, with emphasis on those changes relevant to libraries.

guide-for-perplexed-part3-nov09.pdf

The American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, and the Association of College and Research Libraries (the Library Associations) submit these comments to address developments relating to the proposed Settlement that have arisen since the Library Associations filed their initial comments with this Court on May 4, 2009. In particular, these comments discuss the amendment Google and the University of Michigan (Michigan) entered into on May 20, 2009 that expanded the 2004 agreement that allowed Google to scan books in the Michigan library for inclusion in Google's search database.

googlebooks-lib-assn-supp-filing-02aug09.pdf