Georgia State Update

There are some very recent udpates to the Georgia State case. I suggest that you head on over to Scholarly Communications @ Duke's Going forward with Georgia State lawsuit and LibraryLaw Blog's Who infringed at Georgia State? for more information.

There was a recent ruling on summary judgments for the Georgia State case. An important part of the ruling is that the court did not find Georgia State guilty of direct and vicarious copyright infringement, but the case will continue based on concerns of contributory infringement. Discarding the direct and vicarious copyright concerns is good news for Georgia State. Overall, this recent ruling is more favorable to Georgia State than the plaintiffs. The judge presiding over the case has included discussions of the economics that influence providing resources for students. Also, the judge indicated the plaintiffs have a narrow window for proving infringement. Finally, the judge seemed to look favorably on the fact that Georgia State has since changed its copyright policy that brings it more in line with what other universities do. (See the Duke blog for more info on the details.)

LibraryLaw blog makes an interesting point about indirect infringement: if the university (or here, the individual defendants) are not the direct infringers, then who are? Librarians who did the scanning? The faculty that requested the individual scans? Or the many students who would have downloaded the scans? It's an interesting question that has the potential to influence the case. (One of the things that I have learned about the practice of law in the US is that there is often a very pragmatic approach. Judges often seemed concerned about what will actually happen after a court ruling, and they do not just have an ungrounded-from-reality, theoretical approach.) It seems like it would be crazy to go after each individual who had ever been involved in e-reserves, so I suppose the individual plaintiffs had to do.

LibraryLaw blog also points out an interesting tidbit: turns out that the Copyright Clearance Center is paying for 50% of this legal action. Isn't it upsetting that the institutions who pay CCC are now being indirectly sued by them?