A verdict was issued in the Georgia State case yesterday evening.

For a helpful summary and analysis of the case, please visit the most recent posting on Kevin Smith's blog, Scholarly Communications @ Duke: "The GSU Decision-- Not an Easy Road For Anyone"

http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/

Please click below to access the full text of the case:

http://www.infodocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/GA-State-Opinion.pdf

On December 28th 2011 the U.S. Copyright Office released its report on potentially placing pre-1972 sound recordings under federal copyright protection.

To summarize, the Copyright Office recommends federal copyright protection for pre-1972 sound recordings with provisions mainly pertaining to length of copyright protection and issues of copyright ownership.

For further reading:

1. Michael Kelley's Copyright and Fair Use column in Library Journal

2. Joan Cheverie's blog post from Educause

On January 18th, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court issued their decision against the plaintiffs in Golan v. Holder. Justice Ginsberg wrote the decision for the 6-2 majority. Justices Alito and Breyer dissented; Justice Kagan recused herself from the case.

To summarize the opinion, the majority states that Congress does have the authority to reinstate copyright in public domain works.

For further reading on this decision please consult:

1. Kevin Smith's post on the Scholarly Communications Blog at Duke University

2. Jeffrey R. Young's Technology column from the Chronicle of Higher Education

3. David Rapp's Copyright and Fair Use column from Library Journal

4. Lyle Denniston's analysis on SCOTUSblog

Here is an update on the AIME v UCLA case as well as some news on another case of relevance to libraries.

1. On October 3rd, 2011, a federal judge dismissed the AIME v. UCLA case. The two main reasons for the dismissal of the case were: 1. AIME failed to prove that UCLA waived its state sovereign immunity through signing a license agreement, and 2. AIME lacks associational standing to sue for copyright infringement. AIME was given two weeks to refile the case and they have since done so.

For further reading on the case, please consult the following:

University of Maryland's Center for Intellectual Property Scholar, Peggy Hoon, gives an explanation of associational standing on the Collectanea Blog.

Duke University's Scholarly Communications Officer, Kevin Smith discusses the dismissal of the case as well as details of its refiling by AIME in his Scholarly Communications Blog.

2. On September 12, 2011, the Authors Guild filed suit against HathiTrust's Orphan Works Project claiming that they infringed members' copyrights in the digitization and distribution of their books.

HathiTrust is a group of university and research libraries that initially participated in the Google Books scanning project and are now collaborating on other digitization efforts. Last summer, HathiTrust posted a list of digitized orphan works that it would make available on a limited basis to logged-in institutional users only after a thorough search determined that a copyright holder could not be identified. HathiTrust posted these orphan works with the proviso that if a copyright holder did come forward then the works would be removed.

The Authors Guild's complaint does not seek monetary damages, but wishes to enjoin HathiTrust from proceeding with the Orphan Works Project as well as to impound nearly seven million files.

For further reading on this case, please consult ARL's "Authors Guild v. HathiTrust et. al. Resources."

In the case of EMI v. MP3Tunes, a District Court judge has ruled that the music locker service MP3Tunes is protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbor protections (as codified in 17 USC 512(c)). The DMCA provides that online services are not liable for the copyright infringements of their users when the services do not have actual knowledge of copyright infringement and move expeditiously to remove infringing material when they learn of it ("notice and takedown"). The ruled against MP3Tunes on other points, including its liability for contributory infringement.

This case is being closely watched by many industries as it tests the ability of music locker services to proceed without securing licenses from copyright holders. Amazon and Google are also moving forward with unlicensed music locker services. EMI has appealed the ruling to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

The opinion can be found here.

Contributed by Eric Harbeson