A victory for balanced use of copyright
Larry Lessig and his colleagues have struck another victory for balanced use of copyrights. Good for them!
Shloss v. Estate of James Joyce: Settlement:
As reported at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, Shloss v. Estate of James Joyce has settled. As you can read in the settlement agreement, we got everything we were asking for, and more (the rights to republish the book). This is an important victory for a very strong soul, Carol Shloss, and for others in her field. I am grateful to our team for their hard work. (Contrary to some news reports, while I was instrumental in bringing this case and in setting its strategy, the settlement was effected by Anthony Falzone and David Olson.) (Press Release).
But this is only the first in what I expect will be a series of cases defending the rights of academics against improperly aggressive copyright holders. I hope this is the last case against this particular defendant. But we’ve already seen others that may prove as egregious as this. One important part of the mission of the “Fair Use Project” is to defend the rights of scholars and academics, drawing more clearly and practically the boundary that “fair use” is intended to defend in theory. Stay tuned.