On the future of e-Reserves: ‘Fair use’ decision from the 11th Circuit

Late last week the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in Cambridge University Press et al. v. Patton, also known as the Georgia State University (GSU) case. In this case, originally filed in 2008, a group of academic publishers sued GSU for copyright infringement due to the content that professors were making available to students through the university’s e-reserves, a system managed by the library.

The district court originally decided in favor of GSU which had argued that the course e-reserve content complied with fair use standards for non-profit educational purposes. The 11th Circuit has reversed this finding and remands the case to the judge in the district court for reconsideration.

A copy of the 11th Circuit opinion can be found at http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201214676.pdf

A preliminary analysis of the opinion by Kevin Smith, JD of Duke University Library, can be found here http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2014/10/19/gsu-appeal-ruling-read-better-seems/

Gary Price’s infoDOCKET contains an evolving collection of reactions to the 11 Circuit decision: http://www.infodocket.com/2014/10/17/appellate-court-reverses-district-court-judgment-in-publishers-v-georgia-state-u-fair-use-case/