Copyright Court Cases

This page selectively lists copyright-related court cases that hold relevance to the academic community.

Contents:

Fair Use Cases
Copyright Terms and Conditions
Copyright and the Creation of Databases

Fair Use Cases

American Geophysical Union v. Texaco (1995) / Summary (by Stanford University)
Publishers of scientific and technical journals brought this infringement claim against Texaco for unauthorized copyright of articles from their journals for research purposes. The court found that Texaco's copying was not a fair use because it involved "systematic" copying that may contribute to the profit-making goals of the organization.

Basic Books v. Kinko Graphics (1991) / Case
Publishers alleged that Kinko's infringed their copyrights when they copied chapters from books for sale to students. The court found that Kinko's use was not a fair use. While the photocopying was intended to serve student needs, it was commercial and competed directly with potential sales of the original books.

Campbell v. Acuff-Rose (1994) / Case
Rap group 2 Live Crew used musical tags and opening lines from the song "Oh Pretty Woman" in the creation of a parody song "Pretty Woman." The court found this use to be fair use, as the group's use of the work was transformative and incorporated only a small portion of the song.

Kelly v. Arriba Soft (2003) / Case
Arriba Soft operates a search engine that displays images from a professional photographer as "thumbnail" images. The court found the creation and use of the thumbnail images in the search engine to be a fair use. Thumbnail images are much smaller in size and are of poorer quality than the original and as such do not undermine the market for the original images.

Salinger v. Random House (1987) / Case
A biographer quoted material from six of Richard Wrightıs unpublished letters and ten journal entries. The court found that while no more than 1% of the letters were copied, because the letters were unpublished and constituted the ³backbone² of the biography, the use was not a fair use.

Sony Corporation v. University City Studios (1984) / Case
Also known as the "Betamax" case. Universal Studios brought an infringement claim against Sony, who marketed a video tape recorder that allowed recording of Universal Studios copyrighted works. The court held that Sony was not held liable for the infringing actions of users of their video tape recorder. The court based its decision on the evidence that most viewers were "time-shifting" rather than "library-building" and, therefore, did not deprive the copyright owners of revenue.

Copyright Terms and Conditions

Eldred v. Ashcroft (2003) / Case
This case considers the constitutionality of the Copyright Term Extension Act (CETA) that extends copyright protection an additional 20 years. This Act was challenged based on the Copyright Clause's "limited Times" restriction. The Supreme Court ruled that Congress acted within its authority and did not transgress constitutional limitations.

Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service (1991) / Case
Feist Publications created a telephone directory based on content available in Rural Telephone Service's existing directory. The Supreme Court ruled that Rural's directory is not copyrightable. Telephone directories do not meet the standard of "originality" for copyright protection; copyright protection rewards originality, not effort, or "sweat of the brow."

Copyright and the Creation of Databases

New York Times v. Tasini (2001) / Case
Publishers licensed the rights to copy and sell articles to NEXIS without the permission of the freelance authors who wrote the articles. The court ruled that databases like NEXIS are not "collective works" as described in Sec. 201(c) of the Copyright Act and, therefore, such copying by the publishers was not allowable.