CRIV BLOG

Thanks to Kevin Smith’s ever excellent blog, Scholarly Communication @ Duke, for updating us on the GSU e-reserves litigation.  About that case now before the 11th Circuit, Smith reminds us that “[t]he very academics that are vilified as thieves in this lawsuit are the ones who produce the content that Oxford, Cambridge and Sage take, usually for free, to resell at a high profit.”  Smith links to University of Toronto law professor Ariel Katz’s post about the recent settlement reached by two Israeli publishers and the Hebrew University with regard to fair use in e-reserves.  That agreement seems to be an eminently reasonable way forward that, according to Smith, “indicates a real commitment to scholarship and education on the part of these Israeli publishers, something wholly lacking from the U.S. plaintiffs.”