From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:33:41 -0500

You say "regularly being sued." As far as I'm aware, the suit against
Georgia State is the first copyright suit brought by publishers
against any university. Previous suits were brought against commercial
copyshops adjacent to university campuses. Do you know of any other
suits by publishers against universities? And please note that the
suit against GSU aimed only at an injunction against future illegal
copying and did not seek damages for past infringements.

Sandy Thatcher


> From: Laura Quilter <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:18:06 -0400
>
> Sandy,
>
> I take it that the problem is with university professors whose work is
> directly related to (and partially funded by) their university jobs.
> If a professor creates something unrelated to their job -- they teach
> history of science; they wrote a popular song -- then conflict of
> interest wouldn't really arise.
>
> Universities have often refrained from asserting ownership under
> work-for-hire of faculty's teaching and scholarly works, out of
> tradition and so forth, but if they are regularly being sued on those
> works, then they might choose not to forego their own legal rights.
>
> Laura
>
> ----------------------------------
> Laura Markstein Quilter / [log in to unmask]
> Librarian, Geek, Attorney, Teacher
> Copyright and Information Policy Librarian
> University of Massachusetts, Amherst
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Lecturer, Simmons College, GSLIS
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 4:45 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>  From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
>>  Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:36:31 -0500
>>
>>  It might be a problem if the universities, as employers, claimed
>>  ownership of their faculty's copyrights. Generally, however, those
>>  copyrights are transferred to the publishers, who become the owners
>>  and therefore have a vested interest in protecting their property. How
>>  is this situation you describe different from a professor who writes a
>>  popular song being indirectly implicated in a suit brought by a member
>
>  > of the RIAA against the professor's university for infringing
>  > copyright by reproducing it without permission?
>  >
>  > Sandy Thatcher