Last Friday, a federal judge in New York dismissed a lawsuit filed by an
attorney who claimed that Westlaw and Lexis violated copyright law by
providing copies of his legal briefs in their databases.
Westlaw and Lexis countered that the inclusion of the briefs in their
databases should be protected under the “fair use” exception to
copyright law. They also contended that they sufficiently transformed
the documents by making them searchable.
The case is Edward White v. West Publishing Corp, U.S. District Court
for the Southern District of New York, No. 12-1340. The “brief” ruling
from U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff is available here. A subsequent opinion is expected to lay out the Judge’s reasoning for dismissing the lawsuit.
Click here for a news article discussing the opinion, and here for a blog post discussing the issue.
Want to learn more about copyright law and fair use? Check out some of the library’s copyright titles:
Copyright Law in a Nutshell by Mary LaFrance
Copyright Law and Practice by William F. Patry
(This entry was originally written and posted by Sarah Kammer)
No comments:
Post a Comment