From the monthly archives: November 2009

What are we paying for?

On November 27, 2009 By

As the lawsuit brought by three publishers against Georgia State University claiming copyright infringement in GSU’s e-reserves and course management systems wends its way toward what seems to be an increasingly likely trial, it has had an unexpected benefit for academic librarians who manage electronic reserves.

As many people already know, academic copyright expert Dr. [...]

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Writing about reform

On November 23, 2009 By

Every now and then, a law review article on copyright comes along that is so good that I feel I have to recommend it.  I am well aware that most of my readers are neither lawyers nor legal scholars, and the length and stilted format of law review articles can be off-putting.  But Professor Jessica [...]

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Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose (GBS again)

On November 17, 2009 By

In the brief time since the Amended Google Books Settlement was filed with the court (on Friday the 13th) and released to the public, there has been a flurry of commentary from a variety of perspectives.  Two interesting themes have emerged, however, from those on both sides of the great debate over whether [...]

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Architectural overreaching

On November 13, 2009 By

This recent post on the TechDirt blog drew my attention (and that of may others) to an earlier note on the Freakonomics blog about an artist who pays an annual fee plus a percentage of his earnings to the University of Texas, Austin for the right to paint pictures of famous UT buildings like the [...]

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Copyright should be an author’s right (part 2)

On November 9, 2009 By

As promised in the last post, here is a very different look at the copyright incentive and the need to be thoughtful and cautious when we talk about copyright as an author’s right.

In the Autumn 2009 issue of The American Scholar, William J. Quirk writes an absolutely fascinating reflection on the finances of F. [...]

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Copyright should be an author’s right (part 1)

On November 4, 2009 By

It seems like such a simple point.  And the rhetoric of authors’ entitlement to the fruits of their labors has always been prominent in copyright debates, although it was usually on the lips of printers and publishers whose real concerns were much different.  Two very different articles have once again led me to reflect on [...]

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