Justice Elena Duarte, writing for the Third District Court of Appeal, held that the City of Redding, CA’s—and its library’s—policy of limiting leafleting to a “free speech area” on the plaza outside the library violated the First Amendment.
Appeals Court: Redding, CA, Must Allow Leafleting in Front of Library
By on January 2, 2013 4 Comments
The Fight for Free Information: Liberate Our Cultural Assets from Economic Prisons | Blatant Berry
By on November 12, 2012 2 Comments
The cheering echoes still throughout librarianship. Recent court decisions—such as the HathiTrust’s win over the Authors Guild—strengthen the use of the concept of “fair use” to exempt from copyright the reproduction of material, liberate the free digitization of so-called “orphan works,” and allow free public access to the results. Yet even those cheering the loudest caution that there are still no definitive rules to apply to these victories. The victories are yet evidence of the value of well-organized efforts to prevent copyright from locking up our intellectual and cultural resources. The leaders of the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA), comprised of the Association of Research Libraries, the American Library Association (ALA), and the Association of College and Research Libraries (an ALA division), deserve the cheers and the continuing support of librarians.
Publisher Plaintiffs Post GSU Court Costs, To Be Held Pending Appeal
By on November 6, 2012 Leave a Comment
The publisher plaintiffs in the Georgia State University (GSU) ereserves copyright case deposited $ 3,271,275 into the Commercial Registry of the Court for the Northern District of Georgia to cover the attorney’s fees and costs of GSU, the prevailing party in the dispute. However, the money will be held in escrow until the appeal is decided.
TN Supreme Court: Memphis Library Cards Are Voter ID
By on November 5, 2012 Leave a Comment
Voters in Memphis, TN, can cast their ballots using nothing more than their photo library cards as the required government-issued picture identification, the state’s Supreme Court decided in a ruling handed down less than a week before Election Day. The order, issued on Nov. 1, affirmed a key portion of a lower court’s ruling and [...]
Update: MI Court of Appeals: No Gun Ban for Libraries
By on October 26, 2012 11 Comments
Library Associations Brace for First Sale Fight with Owners’ Rights Lobby Effort
By on October 23, 2012 1 Comment
The American Library Association (ALA) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) today teamed up with 17 other associations, retailers, and charities to launch a new coalition called the Owners’ Rights Initiative (ORI). ORI is an “informal alliance of stakeholders” that will defend the first sale doctrine, which allows libraries to lend books and other materials, as well as individual owners to resell them.
After Courts Reject Library Card as Voter ID, Memphis Appeals Requirement
By on October 9, 2012 Leave a Comment
Looking to reverse two earlier setbacks in court, attorneys for the City of Memphis (and two registered voters) last week asked Tennessee’s Court of Appeals to hear its challenge to the state’s picture identification voter requirement, a legal battle rooted in the city’s decision to issue library cards to be used as photo ID.
Plaintiffs Must Pay Almost $3 Million in GSU Legal Fees
By on October 5, 2012 Leave a Comment
On September 30 Judge Evans, who had already said the publisher plaintiffs in the Georgia State University (GSU) ereserves case would have to pay the university’s court costs, has now put a number on that obligation: just shy of $3 million. That’s $2,861,348.71 in attorney’s fees and $85,746.39 in costs.
Textbook Publishers Settle Counterfeit Claims
By on September 13, 2012 Leave a Comment
Cengage Learning, John Wiley and Sons, Pearson Education, and McGraw-Hill Education settled five copyright and trademark infringement claims related to counterfeit textbooks, the companies announced recently. The five distributors who agreed to settle the publishers’ claims are: Kentwood Industries in California, Texas Book Company in Texas, Sterling Educational Media in Florida, Davis Textbook in California, [...]
GSU Ereserves Plaintiffs File Appeal
By on September 10, 2012 Leave a Comment
The plaintiffs in the Georgia State University ereserves case today appealed the decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Orinda Evans of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia ruled largely in GSU’s favor on May 11, holding only a handful of GSU’s usages to be infringement. Plaintiffs Cambridge University [...]
