When my kids were little, I left my job at The National Law Journal in 2004 to work part-time as a freelancer for ALM before rejoining the company in 2009.

During those five years, I volunteered every week at my son and daughter's school—and much of the work involved making photocopies for teachers using the school's beast of a copier. 

With this context in mind, I heartily applaud and congratulate a team from Winston & Strawn led by Jennifer Golinveaux (with backing by amicus Creative Commons and lead counsel Andrew Gass of Latham & Watkins) for their win on behalf of Office Depot on Dec. 27 before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The issue? Photocopies for teachers.

Office Depot was sued by Great Minds, which publishes the widely-used math curriculum Eureka Math. Represented by Simpson Thacher & Bartlett's Christopher Sprigman, Great Minds claimed Office Depot infringed its copyrights by reproducing educational materials on behalf of schools. 

That is, sometimes schools (lacking parent volunteers, or perhaps recognizing we are hapless and can't fix paper jams?) simply pay Office Depot to make copies of worksheets and whatnot for teachers to use in their classrooms.

Great Minds conceded the school's own use and distribution of copies of the material was non-commercial and thus permitted under the terms of the copyright license. The issue was who made the copies—under Great Minds' theory, it would be fine for a teacher (or volunteer) to do it at Office Depot, but not OK for the school to pay an Office Depot worker to do it.

"Great Minds' interpretation cannot be correct," wrote Senior Judge Jerome Farris for the unanimous panel, noting that it would lead to "absurd results."

Great Minds previously struck out before the Second Circuit when it sued another copy shop, FedEx Office, and the Ninth Circuit panel followed suit.

"The license itself provides no basis to distinguish between permitted copies of Eureka Math made by a licensee's own employees (e.g., school teachers or staff) versus those made by a third-party contractor (e.g., Office Depot employees). We decline to read such a distinction into the license," Farris wrote in affirming the lower court's dismissal of the complaint and denying leave to amend.

The winning Winston team also included Diana Hughes Leiden, Thomas Kearney, Irina Lyapis and Alyse Ritvo.