If you read the actual filing, however, you'll see that the overwhelming
majority of the complaint is about the use of multiple chapters from
books. There are some articles included in the appendix, but the suit is
mainly about book chapters in e-reserves and GSU's course management
system. From the complaint, it does appear GSU went a bit overboard in
how much of a single book they allowed to be digitized - much more than
just one or two chapters in some cases.

Also, it is quite possible that this case won't ever get to the merits
of fair use, because of the "state sovereignty" issue surrounding suing
a state government (a public university is part of the state government
in the eyes of the US Supreme Court) under federal copyright law. And a
federal district court has recently thrown out as unconstitutional an
attempt by Congress to explicitly make state govts subject to copyright
law: http://tinyurl.com/5tyqcn

The biggest take-away message, however, may be: make sure that outsiders
can't see your e-reserves! Apparently the publishers discovered all this
because GSU carelessly left their e-reserves completely unprotected and
open to the Internet for a long period of time, only closing it up after
the publishers began to contact them. That interpretation is based
solely on my reading of the actual filing by the plaintiffs. Disclaimer:
I am not a lawyer.

Melissa Belvadi
Systems and Services Librarian
Maryville University
650 Maryville University Dr.
St. Louis, MO 63141
mbelvadi@maryville.edu
ph: 314-529-9531
fax: 314-529-9941

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
[mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Rick C. Mason
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 1:37 PM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] News about lawsuit against Georgia State

The url was cut in two by the line wrap; that may have been the cause of
your "Page cannot be found" error.

Here is a shortened url:
http://tinyurl.com/6ajsbm

In short, several publishers (Oxford, Cambridge, and SAGE) are suing
Georgia State University for copyright infringement.  The university has
been providing digital articles through coursepacks without obtaining
authorization, according to the publishers.

It reminds me quite a bit of the Kinko's lawsuit, and will possibly help
to define what is and isn't permitted when working with electronic
articles.  We shall see...

Rick

Rick Mason
Acquisitions Assistant
Blackmore Library
Capital University
1 College and Main
Columbus, OH 43209-2394
(614) 236-6353
rmason2@capital.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
[mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Skwor, Jeanette
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 8:51 AM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] News about lawsuit against Georgia State

I keep getting "Page cannot be found" messages from this, and the
several permutations of it I thought might be helpful.  Can you either
correct if or tell us what it is?

Thanks,

Jeanette L. Skwor
Cofrin Library, Serials Dept.
UW-Green Bay
2420 Nicolet Drive
Green Bay, WI 54311

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
[mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Hutchens, Chad
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 2:40 PM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: [SERIALST] News about lawsuit against Georgia State

Apologies for cross-listing...I ran across this on a state listserv.

I guess this was bound to happen at some time.

http://www.publishers.org/main/PressCenter/GeorgiaStateLawsuitRelease.ht
m

Chad E. Hutchens
Electronic Resources Librarian
Montana State University Libraries
P.O. Box 173320
Bozeman, MT  59717-3320
(406) 994-4313 phone
(406) 994-2851 fax
chutchens@montana.edu