James Joyce vs. Fair Use

Important news this week: The Stanford Center for Internet and Society and Robert Spoo, a noted Joyce scholar and lawyer, have filed a lawsuit arguing that scholar's Carol Shloss's proposed use of some unpublished material by James Joyce is a fair use.  They are also suggesting that Stephen Joyce, James's grandson, may have engaged in copyright misuse.  You can find the announcement and a copy of the complaint at http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003430.shtml.

In a related story, the New Yorker has an article about Stephen Joyce's attempts to control scholarship about his family.  The problems with the estate led to the development of an FAQ about the use of Joyce material, described in an earlier post.

It has been awhile since we have had a lawsuit that tests the boundaries of fair use of unpublished material.  The Joyce suit has the potential for clarifying the boundaries of scholarly fair use.

Comments

[Mary]

Depends on British Columbia library law. Here's a link to get you started: http://blog.librarylaw.com/librarylaw/2004/11/quotwe_dont_hav.html

[Greg]

Hi - I just want to know how and if I can post a question about a legal issue in a library? I don't see any other way to post this so I'm putting this query in as a comment...sorry.

Please let me know how I can post this:

We have privacy statements which state that we will only release personal information about our patrons if we are presented with a court order. However recently there have been crimes committed on library property and we have contacted the police to report them. Now it does not seem appropriate to then tell the police, 'present us with a search warrant and we will give you the name of the person alleged to have committed the crime.' So how we can appropriately reword our confidentiality statements to allow for the exception of a crime committeed on library premises?

Thanks for any help,

Greg
Burnaby Public Library
British Columbia, Canada