American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, Inc.

American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, Inc.
Court United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Argued May 20, 1993
Decided October 28, 1994
Citation(s) 60 F.3d 913; 1995 Copr.L.Dec. (CCH) ¶ 27,417, 35 U.S.P.Q.2d 1513
Case history
Subsequent action(s) Amended December 23, 1994; further amended July 17, 1995.
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting Jon O. Newman, Ralph K. Winter Jr., Dennis Jacobs
Case opinions
Majority Newman, joined by Winter
Dissent Jacobs

American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, 60 F.3d 913 (2d Cir. 1995)[1], was a U.S. copyright case holding that a private, for-profit corporate library could not rely on fair use in systematically making copies of articles for its employees.[2]

Case background

Texaco is a for-profit corporation, that maintained an internal library and employed a number of scientists. Texaco subscribed to journals by the American Geophysical Union, a scholarly society that publishes a number of journals. Texaco also purchased a photocopy license from the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), an entity that licenses academic content to research organizations.[3] Texaco, like many entities with institutional libraries, was in the practice of photocopying articles from its journals to send to employees.

The AGU and five other publishers, eventually joined by several dozen other publishers, sued Texaco.[3] Texaco defended, citing the fair use doctrine, which holds that uses found to be "fair," "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research," are not infringements of copyright.[4]

The court ultimately deemed Texaco's use to not be fair use, and Texaco was fined and agreed to retroactively purchase a license from the Copyright Clearance Center.[1][5]

The Second Circuit's fair-use analysis weighed heavily the "fourth factor",[3] which considers "the effect of the use upon the potential market for ... the copyrighted work."[4] Because CCC made licenses available for the photocopying, the court held that Texaco's failure to use those licenses for all its photocopying deprived the rightsholders of lost licensing revenue.[3] This portion of the opinion has been criticized for its circularity of reasoning: Since any use could in theory be licensed, any unlicensed use would weigh against fair use on the market harm factor.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, Inc., 60 F.3d 913 (2d Cir. 1995).
  2. 1 2 Harper, Georgia. "Professional Fair Use After Texaco". Copyright Crash Course: Building on Others' Creative Expression. University of Texas Libraries. Retrieved 25 November 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Cásarez at 644.
  4. 1 2 17 U.S.C. Section 107, Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use.
  5. ↑ "Copyright & Photocopies". Copyright Clearance Cente. Retrieved 25 November 2013.

Further reading

  • Nicole B. Cásarez, "Deconstructing the Fair Use Doctrine: The Cost of Personal and Workplace Copying after American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, Inc.", 6 Fordham Intell. Prop. Media & Ent. L.J. 641 (1995)
  • William Patry, "American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, Inc.: Copyright and Corporate Photocopying", 61 Brook. L. Rev. 429 (1995)
  • Carol M. Silberberg, "Preserving Educational Fair Use in the Twenty-First Century", 74 S. Cal. L. Rev. 617 (2000).
  • K.L. Still, "American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, Inc.: Expanding the Copyright Monopoly", 29 Ga. L. Rev. 1233 (1994)
  • Shannon Waggoner, "American Geophysical Union v. Texaco: Is the Second Circuit Playing Fair with the Fair Use Doctrine?" (Note), 18 Hastings Comm. & Ent. L. J. 181 (1995)
  • Sarah K. Wiant, "Users' Right to Photocopy: The Impact of American Geophysical Union v. Texaco and Princeton University Press on Users' Rights to Photocopy", in Growing Pains: Adapting Copyright for Libraries, Education, and Society, ed. by Laura Gasaway (1997)

Text of American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, 60 F.3d 913 (2d Cir. 1995) is available from:  Cornell  Justia  OpenJurist  Google Scholar 

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