Speculation to Litigation: Copyright and Climate Change in Libraries
Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Preconference Workshop
April 10, 2013

This preconference workshop explored copyright issues faced by academic institutions, especially libraries. In the past few years, there has been a surge in litigation related to the use of copyrighted materials in academic institutions, and this workshop was intended to discuss these cases and how to identify copyright issues to hopefully help prevent copyright suits at your institution. This workshop was led by some of the foremost copyright librarians/lawyers in the field, one of whom was actually involved in one of the recent copyright cases. This workshop helped me better understand the current legal environment, the risk to academic institutions, and how to mitigate such risk.

Program description from http://conference.acrl.org/from-speculation-to-litigation–pages-272.php:

“Changes in digital technologies have produced monumental advancements in libraries. Those changes have generated close scrutiny of copyright in libraries and pitched efforts in the courts to upend many presumably unassailable library roles. The conversation about copyright has evolved from speculation to litigation. This preconference will trace that conversation, analyze copyright and contemporary litigation on broad fronts, and engage participants in resolving the fundamental challenges of our times through imaginative, innovative, and inspired decision making.

Participants will engage with presenters on several levels of active learning. Presenters will take contemporary lawsuits and lead participants in analyzing their origins, the events leading to and the process of making the suit, and the consequences and implications of each phase and the outcome. Participants will judge decision making of the litigants and the courts, but in particular will assess those facts and circumstances supporting the suit in order to link day-to-day decision making in copyright to the broader implications of applying law and understanding litigation. That exploration will emphasize alternatives and strategies. Participants will break apart contemporary problems in copyright within academic libraries and their supporting institutions by developing reasonable policy and practical responses to known, but more importantly often unknown, challenges of using copyrighted works in a digital world. Understanding risk and developing a sense for tolerance of it also will factor into the decision making exercises.

This session is for academic librarians at all levels of their career, ranging from librarians with lesser exposure to those with some to an advanced degree of copyright knowledge. However, much of the emphasis will center on those librarians with some to advanced copyright experiences.”