On Tue, 06 Jul 1999, John R. Allison <allisonj[_at_]mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
> On 7/4/99, Alan Kabat <alankabat[_at_]aol.com> wrote:
> >
> > "This ruling is likely to have serious repercussions in such areas as
> > copyright law, where state universities, now chafing under expanded
> > copyright protection, might decide to copy and distribute to students
> > whatever literature they wish, ignoring the copyright laws but safe
> > in the knowledge that they cannot be sued." (S. Sherry, "Some Targets
> > Were Larger Than Others," Wash. Post., July 4, 1999, at B-4).
>
> Won't happen. Very few universities want the reputation of being
> thieves, even thieves with immunity. Moreover, if it becomes a
> problem
Although it's doubtful that such activity will become official university policy, by the time news about these opinions filters down generally to faculty members, I expect the (inaccurate) gloss on the holdings simply will be that "states (and state entities) cannot be held liable for copyright infringement." As a result, individual faculty members will copy, or encourage students to copy, without regard to copyright law.
Recently, I participated in a legal issues panel in a university setting and was taken aback by the ease with which professors justified the copying of articles or excerpts from texts for classroom use. The majority opinion seemed to be, "I have no moral qualms about making copies because it's not stealing; that is, it is not depriving the copyright holder of anything she would have otherwise received, because if my class were required to purchase the entire textbook/journal/volume of proceedings, etc. then I would not assign it."
Regardless of whether this opinion is sound (and I believe a strong argument can be made that it is not), it provides an example of a prevalent effort in academia -- a leap to exploit supposed loopholes or exceptions in the copyright laws through which to drive the truck of unlimited-copying-for-classroom-use.
Professors resort to these arguments because they believe obtaining permission is administratively difficult, or too time-consuming, or they fail to plan ahead, or they fear permission will be denied, or they cannot be bothered, or perhaps, simply because they disagree with Congress and the courts about the allocation of rights under copyright law. These rationales are not unique to university faculty, but the Florida Prepaid holding gives this group another easy reason not to seek permission.
Thus, the long term effect of Florida Prepaid will be a greater mis-understanding and disregard of copyright law in academia and, by osmosis, generally (leading, eventually, to The End of the World As We Know It <g>). Perhaps I am just naively a bit surprised that the perspective of professors can be just as self-serving as the next person's. Eventually, some poor professor will be sued over a particularly egregious incident and will have an opportunity of serving as the horrible example that warns all others they should pay closer attention to the requirements of the copyright laws.
Sam Byassee <sam_byassee[_at_]shmm.com>Smith Helms Mulliss & Moore, LLP
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