Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: How a Drastic Remodeling of 17 U.S.C. § 108 Could Help Save Academia

Journal of Intellectual Property Law Volume 19 | Issue 2 Article 10 March 2012 Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: How a Drastic Remodeling of 17 U.S.C. § 108 Could Help Save Academia Savanna Nolan Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/jipl Part of the Intellectual Property Law Commons Recommended Citation Savanna Nolan, Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: How a Drastic Remodeling of 17 U.S.C. § 108 Could Help Save Academia, 19 J. Intell. Prop. L. 457 (2012). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/jipl/vol19/iss2/10 This Notes is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Georgia Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Intellectual Property Law by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Georgia Law. Please share how you have benefited from this access For more information, please contact . Nolan: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: How a Drastic Remodeling of STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS: HOW A DRASTIC REMODELING OF 17 U.S.C. S 108 COULD HELP SAVE ACADEMIA Savanna Nolan* TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................... ................................... I. INTRODUCTION ...... II. B ACK G ROUN D ............................................................................................. A. THE ORIGINS OF SECTION 108.......................................................... The Gentlemen's Agreement of 1935................................................ The CopyrightAct of 1976 .............................................................. The White Paper.............................................................................. The DigitalMillennium CopyrightAct............................................. The Copyright Term Extension Act................................................. SECTION 108 CASE LAW (OR LACK THEREOF) ................................ 1. Priorto 1976 ................................................................................... 2. 1976- 1998 ..................................................................................... THE CURRENT STATE OF LIBRARIES AND COPYING ..................... 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. B. C. D. E. 460 461 461 464 469 470 471 471 471 472 474 THE SECTION 108 STUDY GROUP, PROPOSED REVISIONS, ............ 476 AND HOW THE BALL WAS DROPPED ............ CURRENT LITIGATION UNDER SECTION 108.................................. 479 1. 2. III. 459 The H athiTrust Case...................................................................... The G eorgia State Case................................................................. 479 479 ....................................... ...... ................................... A N ALYSIS .... A. WHY LIBRARIES AND COPYRIGHT HOLDERS ARE NOT FUNDAMENTALLY AT ODDS (AND SHOULD TRY TO .................................................. GET ALONG) 480 OverlappingPolidesand Goals ........................ a. The Distrihutionof Knowledge................................................... h. The Preservationof Knowledge................................................... 482 482 482 1. 482 J.D. candidate 2013, University of Georgia School of Law. The author would like to thank her editors and classmates for their assistance with this Note. She would also like to thank her friends and family for their support throughout her schooling, especially the ever-patient, evercurious Joseph C. Nolan, to whom she dedicates this Note. 457 Published by Digital Commons @ Georgia Law, 2012 1 Journal of Intellectual Property Law, Vol. 19, Iss. 2 [2012], Art. 10 J.INTELL PROP.L 458 [Vol. 19:457 2. Economics............................................ 483 a. DigitalLibrariesPrimariyFacilitateDistribution Already Protected By FairUse.................................................. 483 b. E-Reserves Pratice.................... ......... 483 B. WHY THE LANGUAGE OF SECTION 108 IS CURRENTLY INSUFFICIENT. ......................................... 483 C. PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO SECTION 108................................... 484 IV. CONCLUSION https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/jipl/vol19/iss2/10 ............................................. 485 2 Nolan: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: How a Drastic Remodeling of 2012] STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS 459 I. INTRODUCTION In April 2008, three academic publishers filed suit against individuals in charge of Georgia State University, including the President, the Provost, and the Dean of Libraries, in response to the University's "systematic, widespread, and unauthorized copying and distribution of a vast amount of copyrighted works" through the Georgia State University Library's electronic reserves.' In its answers to both the initial and the amended complaints, the University lackadaisically added as a final catch-all defense that the "[p]laintiffs' claims [were] barred, in whole or in part" by 17 U.S.C. § 108.2 In September 2011, The Author's Guild filed suit against HathiTrust Digital Library, a partnership of numerous research libraries, led by the University of Michigan, which was working with Google toward digitizing the libraries' The HathiTrust complaint, in contrast to the Georga State collections.3 complaint, focused extensively on the libraries' alleged violations of Section 108.4 The arguments in the complaint focused largely on how HathiTrust violated the explicit terms of the statutory exception, which, as the topic heading of the complaint notes, is generally known as the "Library Exemption,"5 despite noting that the Library of Congress and the U.S. Copyright Office had sponsored the Section 108 Study Group, which had been charged with determining how to update Section 108 for the modem era.6 These two cases showcase the current tensions between libraries and copyright owners in the Digital Age. When presented with the same general fact pattern-libraries using the Internet and digitization to make resources more readily available-how can one statute allegedly provide both blanket protection and strict condemnation? Part II of this Note traces the historical developments leading up to the initial enactment of Section 108, the case law that arose following the enactment of the Copyright Act of 1976 in the wake of the advent of copy machines, and the alterations enacted by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in response to I Complaint for Declaratory Judgment & Injunctive Relief at 2, Cambridge Univ. Press v. Patton, No. 1:08-CV-1425-ODE (N.D. Ga. filed Apr. 15, 2008), 2008 WL 2473035. 2 Defendants' Answer to Complaint for Declaratory Judgment & Injunctive Relief at 5, Cambridge Univ. Press v. Patton, No. 1:08-CV-1425-ODE (N.D. Ga. filed June 24, 2008); Defendants' Answer to First Amended Complaint for Declaratory Judgment & Injunctive Relief at 8, Cambridge Univ. Press v. Patton, No. 1:08-CV-1425-ODE (N.D. Ga. filed Jan. 2, 2009). 3 Complaint, The Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust, No. 1:11-CV-6351 (S.D.N.Y. filed (...truncated)