Fairly Used Blog

• Disability access comments due to Copyright Office Nov 13
  Copyright Office Notice of Inquiry and Request for Comments onthe Topic of Facilitating Access to Copyrighted Works for the Blind orOther Persons With DisabilitiesThe proposal would permit the cross-border import,export and qualified distribution of copyrighted works in accessibleformats without the permission of the rights holders, including tocountries that presently lack, in their national laws, a specificcopyright exception or other legal framework for serving the visuallyimpaired. The proposal would...
• Mostly bad news for educational fair use
  (posted by Peter Hirtle; cross-posted from http://blog.librarylaw.com)Earlier this fall I wrote about what I called "the other coursepack case" (in Michigan, as opposed to the Georgia State case).  Partial summary judgment has been granted, and it is a mixed bag for educational fair use. In the decision, the judge rejected all of the defenses that the defendant, Excel Copying, put forward.  First, the court rejected, as I suspected it would, the argument that the licenses secured by the University...
• Update: District court grants partial s.j. to publishers in copyshop case
  Although the students press the "start" button to make a copy of a coursepack, the copyshop is the "source of the reproduction" supplying a master copy of the coursepack, equipment and staff assistance.  This is vastly different, says the court, from a scenario in which a student gets a coursepack from a friend and steps into a copyshop to duplicate.  Short work is made of the Fair Use analysis:  Purpose is commercial (it's the copyshop's purpose, not the student's)Nature - creativeAmount -...