march13_b.indd


C&RL News March 2013 162

Corey Williams is associate director, ALA Office of 
Government Relations, e-mail: cwilliams@alawash.org

W a s h i n g t o n  H o t l i n eCorey Williams

Plaintiffs file appeal in Georgia State 
University e-reserves lawsuit
There has been another development in the 
lawsuit filed by a group of publishers claiming 
copyright infringement against Georgia State 
University (GSU). The lawsuit dates back to 
2008, when a trio of academic publishers—
Cambridge University Press, Oxford Univer-
sity Press, and SAGE Publications— filed suit 
in the U.S. District Court for the Northern 
District of Georgia. 

At the heart of lawsuit, Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, et al. v. Patton, et al., was the pub-
lishers’ assertion that the public university’s 
library was making electronic copies of some 
course readings (or e-reserves) available to 
students without paying royalty fees. (Court 
documents, including both parties’ filings, are 
available at www.justia.com.)

In August 2012, Judge Orinda Evans is-
sued her final order in the lawsuit, an ap-
proximately 350-page document, and found 
in favor of GSU and noted that “the Court is 
convinced that Defendants did try to comply 
with the copyright laws.” 

Jonathan Band, copyright lawyer and 
consultant to the Library Copyright Alliance 
(comprised of ALA, ACRL, and the Association 
of Research Libraries), said in response to the 
decision it was, “a great victory for libraries 
and the educational enterprise….the court 
provided a method for evaluating risk in 
situations that depart from the bright lines.” 

The evaluation of risk had to do with 
the Fair Use Doctrine of U.S. Copyright 
law (www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.
html#107), as applied by Evans to several 
specific instances of library e-reserves use by 
faculty at GSU. Since the practice of making 
course materials from the university’s library 
collections available via e-reserve relies on 

fair use (creating a single digital copy, usually 
from a resource already paid for, for educa-
tional purposes), permission generally is not 
sought or needed; thus, additional permission 
fees are not paid to the publisher.

On the heels of the judge’s decision, the 
plaintiffs filed an appeal with the U.S. Court 
of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit, in September 
2012. While it is unclear exactly the extent 
or substance of the appeal, this latest action 
by the plaintiffs breathes continued life into 
a case the library community determined was 
amply (and favorably) decided by the lower 
court judge. 

Perhaps even more interesting, if not 
surprising, was the U.S. Department of Jus-
tice’s (DOJ’s) request to the court of appeals 
for an extension on the deadline to file an 
amicus curiae, or friend of the court, brief 
on the case. 

In the DOJ’s filing it stated, “The gov-
ernment is currently evaluating whether to 
participate…[and file] an amicus brief in 
support of appellants [publishers], or in sup-
port of neither party…and the government 
requests additional time to consider the issues 
presented in this case.” 

It is perplexing that the DOJ would con-
sider weighing in on an appeal by publishers 
on the issue of e-reserves in college and uni-
versity libraries. ALA will continue to monitor 
developments in this landmark fair use case.

Register for National Library 
Legislative Day—May 7-8, 2013, in 
Washington, D.C.
Now is the time to register for the 2013 
National Library Legislative Day (NLLD) at 
www.ala.org/nlld. Hosted by ALA’s Office 
of Government Relations, NLLD is a two-day 
event that draws hundreds of library sup-
porters to the nation’s capital to advocate on 
the most pressing legislative issues affecting 
libraries.