Publishers Sue Georgia State for Copyright Infringement
by Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 4/16/2008 3:47:00 PM
With the support the Association American of Publishers, two university presses and a commercial publisher have filed a copyright infringement suit against officials at Georgia State University, charging systematic copyright infringement. The suit charges GSU president Ron Henry, along with the dean of libraries and the associate provost for information systems and technology, with encouraging university professors to distribute digital copies of copyrighted material through the school’s electronic course reserves and through Blackboard/WebCT, an online course management system, without permission of the copyright holders. The publishers filing suit include Oxford University Press; Cambridge University Press and SAGE, which publishes materials for the academic and professional markets.
The suit charges that “hundreds of professors have compiled thousands of copyrighted works, made them available for electronic distribution, and invited students to download, view and print such materials without permission of the copyright holders.” The suit highlights the return of an old copyright problem in a new digital form. Professors have always liked to pick sections or chapters out of different books and combine them for specific classes in what are generally called course packs. For many years publishers were forced to file lawsuits against photocopy shops like Kinkos, in order to stop them from producing these infringing compilations in print form. Now, with online systems like BlackBoard’WebCT, which allows professors to easily upload all kinds of digital material for their classes, the problem seems to have returned.
“Respect for copyright law is integral to the higher education process,” said Patricia Schroeder, AAP president and CEO. “AAP members and the publishing industry recognize the advantages of making course content available electronically for students and offer licensing and permissions processes designed to allow such uses on a cost-effective basis. We are simply asking Georgia State University to take the necessary measures to respect the law.”
Allan Adler, AAP v-p for legal and governmental affairs, said the practice of uploading digital content to university libraries was “very widespread. This isn’t like library reserves of years ago. They’re putting content on their websites and letting students read it and print it out, without permission.” Adler said that the AAP has entered into agreements with such schools as Cornell, Marquette and Syracuse, that govern the proper use of digital copyrighted materials by universities. And he noted that trade book publishers are also monitoring university e-reserves. “New York Times bestsellers are being used in classes without permission,” said Adler, “this practice is so systematic and widespread that you have to begin to look at its impact on the market.”
Niko Pfund, v-p of Oxford University Press, said that Georgia State has been particularly uncooperative and had “rebuffed” attempts to address the issue, claiming Fair Use. “I hate to be put in an adversarial relationship with university libraries—librarians are among our most important publishing partners—but this not like the old Kinkos days, when it was difficult to get permissions,” Pfund explained. He pointed to permissions services like the Copyright Clearance Center and other online channels that make it much easier to get authorizations and pay licensing fees.“You can’t just upload huge chunks of content to your servers and call it Fair Use,” Pfund said, noting that OUP has challenged similiar practices at other schools. “The AAP and AAUP have published Fair Use guidelines for using Blackboard and other digital services,” said Pfund. “The best outcome of this is for Georgia State to join the fold and start using the permission practices that have been put in place.”
