[A2k] NYT Publishers Sue Georgia State on Digital Reading Matter

[Manon Ress]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
April 16, 2008
Publishers Sue Georgia State on Digital Reading Matter

By KATIE HAFNER
Three prominent academic publishers are suing Georgia State
University, contending that the school is violating copyright laws by
providing course reading material to students in digital format
without seeking permission from the publishers or paying licensing fees.

In a complaint filed Tuesday in United States District Court in
Atlanta, the publishers =97 Cambridge University Press, Oxford
University Press and Sage Publications =97 sued four university
officials, asserting =93systematic, widespread and unauthorized copying
and distribution of a vast amount of copyrighted works=94 by Georgia
State, which the university distributes through its Web site.

The lawsuit, which may be the first of its kind, raises questions
about digital rights, which are confronting many media companies, but
also about core issues like the future of the business model for
academic publishers.

Indeed, as the printed word is put in digital form, holding onto
rights seems to many like climbing up the slippery sides of a glass.
The case centers on so-called course packs, compilations of reading
materials from various books and journals. The lawsuit contends that
in many cases, professors are providing students with multiple
chapters of a given work, in violation of the "fair use" provision of
copyright law. The publishers are seeking an order that the defendants
secure permissions and pay licensing fees to the copyright owners.

Officials at Georgia State, in Atlanta, declined to comment on the
lawsuit. =93We have been informed that a lawsuit is being filed,=94 a
spokeswoman, DeAnna Hines, said. =93However, we have not received it,
and therefore we won=92t be able to comment, pending potential
litigation.=94

Over the years, electronic course packs have become increasingly
common, supplanting their physical counterparts. They consist of
reading material taken from a variety of printed sources, which is
then scanned, compiled and posted on a university=92s Web site. By some
estimates, electronic course packs now constitute half of all syllabus
reading at American colleges and universities.

=93Digitally delivered course content is probably more widespread than
we=92d like to think,=94 said Patricia S. Schroeder, president of the
Association of American Publishers, which supports the lawsuit.

R. Bruce Rich, a partner in the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges,
which is representing the plaintiffs, said that in spite of repeated
attempts to work with Georgia State, =93they indicated that they had no
interest in having a discussion.=94

Mr. Rich said that in a letter his firm received last summer, Georgia
State officials =93indicated their view that all of their practices are
covered under the fair use doctrine.=94

He said that over the last year or so, half a dozen or so other
universities had been contacted about copyright violations. Those
institutions, he said, showed more willingness to work with the
copyright holders and establish stricter university policies around
licensing the material.

Legal precedents exist for cases involving course packs from
photocopied material, but experts say the lawsuit against Georgia
State is the first to be filed over electronic course packs.

In 1991, Basic Books and others won a suit again Kinko=92s, which was
selling course packs it had photocopied.

And in 1992, Princeton University Press and others sued Michigan
Document Services, a photocopying service, which was producing course
packs for University of Michigan students without permission from the
copyright holders. The business was eventually found to be in
copyright infringement.

=93Georgia State=92s activity seems identical with Michigan Document
Services=92 activity,=94 said Susan P. Crawford, a visiting professor at
Yale Law School.

But she pointed out that unlike Kinko=92s and Michigan Document
Services, Georgia State was not making money from the electronic
course packs.

Yet, she added: =93It=92s difficult to argue that this is a truly
noncommercial use. Georgia State may be a nonprofit institution, but
its students pay a lot of money for course materials, and would
presumably pay money for the materials being provided to them by the
university.=94

Frank Smith, editorial director for academic books at Cambridge
University Press, said that for electronic use in a course, Cambridge
typically charges 17 cents a page for each student, and generally
grants permission for use of as much as 20 percent of a book.

=93Publishers have created a market for course materials that is very
similar to the market for luxury goods,=94 Professor Crawford said.
=93There is only one version available, and at a very high price.=94

The dispute recalls problems the music industry had in protecting the
format of an album on a CD. =93What publishers don=92t understand is they
could disaggregate,=94 Professor Crawford said. =93They could
electronically rip apart their books and sell them chapter by chapter,
and everyone would be happier.=94

The publishing industry=92s reluctance to do so , she said, stemmed from
=93a fear that they would cannibalize the market for the printed object,
and they=92re reluctant to let go of that model.=94

Other experts wonder if such a lawsuit might be premature, emphasizing
that in many ways it is too early to settle on a business model for
the distribution of digital materials.

=93In academic publishing, we need to find the digital services people
really want,=94 said Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, a
nonprofit digital library based in San Francisco. =93I wonder if this
will turn out to be an =91attack the innovator=92 suit like the peer-to-
peer suits for the music industry. Sometimes a bit of slack can help
us all discover a winning formula."




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Manon Anne Ress
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Il vaut mieux remuer une question, sans la d=E9cider, que la d=E9cider,
sans la remuer.
Pens=E9es, essais, maximes et correspondance de J. Joubert  p.249
http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=3DGallica&O=3DNUMM-88671
Translation: It is better to debate a question without settling it
than to settle a question without debating it