RE: Re: Litigation Exception

Of course, that is just what the legislative history says and not what the statute says. In fact, your quote from the House Report states that the examples are only the "sort of activities the courts MIGHT (emphasis added) regard as fair use." There are some, Scalia among them, that would say that if Congress wanted to adopt the legislative exception that you point out in the House Report, then Congress would have put that language in the final version of the statute. In fact, many of the examples given are enumerated in the statute: review or criticism, short passage in scholarly work, parody, news, and so on (of course even that enumeration is proceeded by the "such as" phrase). But the statute itself does not mention legislative or judicial proceedings, and it very easily could have.

-----Original Message-----
From: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property [mailto:CNI-COPYRIGHT[_at_]cni.org] On Behalf Of roberthelmer[_at_]charter.net Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 6:45 PM
To: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property Subject: [CNI-(C)] Re: Litigation Exception

>>> Is there an exception to US copyright law that allows the copying
>>> of

copyrighted materials to be submitted to the court in the first place?

The last clause below, from the legislative history of the copyright act would be of most interest:

"The judicial doctrine of fair use, one of the most important and well-established limitations on the exclusive right of copyright owners, would be given express statutory recognition for the first time in section 107. The claim that a defendant's acts constituted a fair use rather than an infringement has been raised as a defense in innumerable copyright actions over the years, and there is ample case law recognizing the existence of the doctrine and applying it. The examples enumerated at page 24 of the Register's 1961 Report, while by no means exhaustive, give some idea of the sort of activities the courts might regard as fair use under the circumstances: 'quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports....'"

   HOUSE REPORT NO. 94-1476 General Background of the Problem. (Pub. L. 94-553, title I, Sec. 101, Oct. 19, 1976, 90 Stat. 2546

Bob

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