For many colleges and universities, hard-copy library reserves are a thing of the past. Many schools have taken to digitizing their reserve materials, allowing students to access required books and articles from the comfort of their dorm rooms.
As a result of this widespread practice, institutions of higher education find themselves grappling with whether e-reserves are permissible under the licenses that they obtain from copyright holders. Many institutions prefer to obtain a blanket license from an organization such as the Copyright Clearance Center rather than rely on the perennially unreliable doctrine of fair use. As a recent Georgia State University case demonstrates, reasonable minds (and courts) can differ about how to apply the fair use factors. When statutory damages, attorney fees, and costs for the prevailing party are on the line, institutions need to be cautious when drafting copyright and intellectual property policies to ensure that those documents maximally conform to current accepted notions of fair use.
What is Fair Use?
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