Judge decides in favor (mostly) of Georgia State U in e-reserves copyright infringement case.

In a landmark ruling over many issues not previously litigated to this degree in the digital era, Judge Orinda Evans rejected many of the claims in a suit by three prominent publishers against Georgia State University. In 94 of the 99 instances cited by the publishers as copyright violations, the judge ruled that Georgia State and its professors were covered by fair use.

At the same time, however, the judge imposed a strict limit of 10 percent on the volume of a book that may be covered by fair use (a proportion that would cover much, but by no means all, of what was in e-reserves at Georgia State, and probably at many other colleges). And the judge ruled that publishers may have more claims against college and university e-reserves if the publishers offer convenient, reasonably priced systems for getting permission (at a price) to use book excerpts online. The lack of such systems today favored Georgia State, but librarians who were anxiously going through the decision were speculating that some publishers might be prompted now to create such systems, and to charge as much as the courts would permit.

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/05/14/court-rejects-many-publishers-arguments-e-reserves#ixzz1uqo2RS7Z
Inside Higher Ed

The Stout University Library provides course reserve services to faculty and students.  This can be in the form of paper copies of articles, personal copies of books, and items in our collection.  Faculty may also utilize the course management system, Canvas, to link to online materials.  This has the added benefit of restricting access only to people enrolled in the course.  The Library can assist with scanning so that faculty can put materials in Canvas.

Some basic guidelines:

• Faculty are responsible for conducting a fair use analysis of each work to determine if it can be used without seeking permission.
• All materials must support course-related teaching, scholarship, or research.
• Whenever possible, provide a link to an article, web site or other material that is available on the Web rather than copying it onto your web page.
• Always acknowledge the author of any work that you use. Include the copyright statement from the work.
• Generally, single isolated copies of brief items can be placed on reserve under the fair use provision.  Repeatedly putting the same article on reserve, semester after semester, is not recommended--generally this goes against the 4th fair use factor--effect on the market,
• Do not use Reserves as a substitute for coursepacks.  This would also have a deleterious effect on the market.  The University Bookstore can assist you with preparing coursepacks.
• Many copyrighted works can be accessed through the library's database licenses. Be sure to check to see if you can link to a work in a library database before you seek permission or pay a permission fee.  Our reference librarians can assist you.