Fair Use
GOOD PORTENTS FOR GOOGLE LIBRARY?
We were waiting and watching for what promised to be a landmark fair use decision from Judge Denny Chin in the Google Library litigation when the case was stayed while its certification as a class action was appealed. In the meantime, a companion case before Judge Harold Baer, The Authors Guild v. Hathitrust, involving a consortium of universities…
Read MorePAUL RYAN'S TWISTED SISTER
At a campaign rally in Pennsylvania yesterday, Representative Paul Ryan used Twisted Sister’s 1984 anthem “We’re Not Gonna Take It” as his walk-on (or perhaps walk-off) music. For those who don’t know or remember it, the song is a timeless expression of core Republican values (e.g., “your life is trite and jaded/boring and confiscated/if that’s…
Read MoreWITH AMICI LIKE THIS, WHO NEEDS HOSTIS?
Could a university chemistry department routinely scan copyrighted scientific journals in their entirety to create an electronic, searchable database that puts their contents at the fingertips of professors and students, so they could use the data compiled by others in perfectly appropriate ways in their own scholarship? I think the answer is clearly “no.” As a result, most…
Read MoreGOOGLE LIBRARY PROJECT CASE NOW A REAL LAWSUIT
It has been seven years since The Authors Guild and some of its individual members first filed suit against Google, charging that its Library Project—to the extent it posted “snippets” of works still in copyright—constituted a massive copyright infringement. Initially, Google welcomed the class action as a vehicle for negotiating a global settlement of such claims that would have,…
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