An Electronic Reserve Identity Crisis: The Next Challenge To Educational Fair Use

In May 2011, a bench trial commenced in the Federal District Court for Northern Georgia which may change the way college libraries everywhere operate. In 2008, Academic publishers Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Sage Publications filed a complaint against the University of Georgia, alleging copyright infringement on a grand scale by the school's library system. No doubt with an eye towards public relations, the plaintiffs are not looking for money, but for a systemic change to the University's copyright policy. Understood broadly, the change the publishers seek, if endorsed by the court, could change the use of electronic reserves at university libraries across the country.