Showing posts with label Pierre Leval. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pierre Leval. Show all posts

Saturday, April 23, 2016

Google Case Ends, but Copyright Fight Goes On; Publishers Weekly, 4/22/16

Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly; Google Case Ends, but Copyright Fight Goes On:
"In a statement, Authors Guild officials called the Supreme Court’s denial a “colossal loss” for authors and bemoaned the “expansion of fair use” in the digital age. Executive director Mary Rasenberger suggested that the courts in the Google case were “blinded” by the “public-benefit arguments.” And Authors Guild president Roxana Robinson added that the Supreme Court’s denial was “further proof that we’re witnessing a vast redistribution of wealth from the creative sector to the tech sector.”
Others, however, including public advocacy group Public KnowIedge hailed the end of the litigation. “The Supreme Court’s decision to let the Second Circuit’s ruling stand reflects what we have long said, that fair use is a powerful and flexible doctrine that enables not only new works, but also innovative uses of existing works," said Raza Panjwani, Policy Counsel at Public Knowledge. "This denial will hopefully lead to new efforts to expand our access to culture and knowledge through digital formats.”
Jonathan Band, an attorney for the library community agrees. "I don't know if anyone else will create another search database for books," he told PW, "but others will create search databases for other sorts of materials, to the benefit of public and the copyright owners."
But that theme—that the courts are enabling the tech sector to unfairly build its value off the backs of creators—has become an animating principle in a copyright policy fight that is slowly beginning to take shape. And while the Google case may have ended in the courts, the copyright fight in the policy arena is likely just getting started...
“I think it hurts them,” [Grimmelmann] said. “The way they lost this case, by litigating this through to four resounding fair-use decisions, the last of which was written by Pierre Leval [considered the nation’s foremost jurist on fair use], it’s hard to imagine any way to lay down stronger bricks for fair use than that.”"

Friday, October 23, 2015

Thanks to a landmark ruling, information just got a little more free; Atlantic, 10/20/15

Robinson Meyer, Atlantic; After 10 Years, Google Books Is Legal: Thanks to a landmark ruling, information just got a little more free:
"In other words, Google Books is legal.
And not only that, but the case is likely resolved for good. In 2012, a district court ruled that Hathitrust, a university consortium that used Google Books’s scans to make books accessible to blind students, was not only a legal form of fair use but also required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Experts say that the Supreme Court is unlikely to hear an appeal, because so many district court judges, and two different federal circuits, have found themselves so broadly in agreement about the nature of transformative use online.
“The Authors Guild is deluding itself to think that this is an area that is open and controversial in the view of the lower courts,” Grimmelmann said.
This isn’t only good news for fans of Google Books. It helps makes the legal boundaries of fair use clear to other organizations who may try to take advantage of it, including libraries and non-profits.
“It gives us a better senses of where fair use lies,” says Dan Cohen, the executive director of the Digital Public Library of America. They “give a firmer foundation and certainty for non-profits.”"