Cambridge University Press v. Patton
United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
769 F.3d 1232 (11th Cir. 2014)
Georgia State University's Board of Regents and administrators (defendants) implemented a policy letting professors distribute digital excerpts of copyrighted textbooks to students for free, guided by a checklist addressing the statutory fair-use factors; publishers Cambridge, Oxford, and Sage (plaintiffs), who earned less than 1% of their revenue from licensing such excerpts, sued for copyright infringement over 78 claims. The district court conducted an individualized fair-use analysis for only seven claims and resolved the remaining 71 using generalized, mechanical rules for each factor rather than case-specific review; the plaintiffs appealed.
Whether a court evaluating fair use for educational excerpting of copyrighted works must conduct an individualized, case-by-case analysis for each alleged instance of infringement.