American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, 60 F.3d 913 (2d Cir. 1994) – A corporation’s internal distribution of multiple copies of scientific articles was not fair use.
Ass’n for Information Media and Equipment v. The Regents of the University of California [AIME v. UCLA], Decisions not reported; 2011 WL 7447148 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 3, 2011) and 2012 WL 7683452 (CD Cal. Nov. 20, 2012) – Video streaming for course reserves was licensed. Use was discussed as a probable fair use.
Authors Guild v. Google, 954 F.Supp.2d 282 (SDNY Nov. 14, 2013, 2nd Cir.) – Google’s indexing of books & presentation of snippets is fair use.
Authors Guild v. HathiTrust, 2014 WL 2219162 (2d Cir. 2014) – Library scanning of digitized books for search indexing and disability access was a fair use.
A.V. v. iParadigms, 562 F.3d 630 (4th Cir. 2009) – Indexing student papers for a plagiarism detection database was fair use.
Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99 (1879) – US Supreme Court case: Ideas, as expressed in forms, were non-copyrightable; established the idea-expression dichotomy in copyright law.
Basic Books Inc. v. Kinko’s Graphics, Co., 758 F. Supp. 1522 (SDNY 1991) – For-profit copy shop’s creation of coursepacks was not fair use.
Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley, 448 F.3d 605 (2d Cir. 2006) – Use of Grateful Dead concert poster images in a “coffee table” book as part of timelines and collages was fair use, notwithstanding commercial purpose.
Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus, 210 U.S. 339 (1908) – US Supreme Court case that recognized the first sale doctrine, later codified in the Copyright Act as 17 USC 109.
Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., 36 F. Supp. 2d 191 (S.D.N.Y. 1999)
Cambridge University Press v. Patton [aka v. Becker] (11th Cir. Oct. 17, 2014) – Electronic reserves in university. Lower court’s fair use analysis needs to be tweaked, but educational purpose and lack of available licenses both tilt towards fair use. This case is pending in the 11th Circuit.
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994) – 2 Live Crew’s parody of Roy Orbison’s “Oh Pretty Woman” was fair use.
Capitol Records v. Redigi, (2nd Cir. 2018) – Resales of digital works were not protected by the first sale doctrine, because they involved the reproduction right and not just the distribution right.
Dastar v. Fox, 539 U.S. 23 (2003) – You can’t extend a copyright term with a trademark.
Diversey v. Schmidly, 738 F.3d 1196 (10th Cir. 2013) – Library access to an unauthorized copy of a dissertation could violate copyright. This case is pending in the 10th Circuit.
Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) – US Supreme Court said that Congress could extend term of copyright for finite durations. First Amendment conceivably could apply to some expansions of copyright.
Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corp. v. Crooks, 558 F. Supp. 1247 (WDNY 1983) Systematic copying of off-air recordings of television broadcasts, for reproduction and distribution in public school system, were not fair use.
Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991) – US Supreme Court case: Compilation of facts was not copyrightable, although original organization or selection could be.
Fox News v. TVEyes (SDNY 2014) – Indexing of video was a fair use.
Golan v. Holder, 565 U.S. 302 (2012) – Retroactive plucking of foreign works from public domain was not unconstitutional.
Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985) – The Nation’s “scoop” of former President Gerald Ford’s memoirs, quoting a small excerpt, was not fair use because it caused a significant market effort (cancellation of publication contract), preempted Ford’s right to control the first publication of his unpublished work, and captured the “heart of the work” of his memoir.
Ho v. Taflove, 648 F.3d 489 (7th Cir. 2011) – Engineering researchers at Northwestern University copied figures and text from colleagues’ mathematical model of how electrons behave in certain circumstances. Graduate student Shi-Hui Chang switched from Professor Seng-Tieng Ho’s lab to Professor Allen Taflove’s lab; graduate student Yingyan Huang joined Ho’s lab afterwards. Chang & Taflove published materials from Ho and Huang’s work without attribution. The equations, figures, and text were unprotectable because of limited ways of expressing the scientific model (the “merger doctrine”).
Hotaling v. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 118 F.3d 199 (4th Cir. 1997) – Placement of unlawful copies in library catalog and on library shelves could violate copyright.
Iowa State University Research Foundation, Inc. v. ABC, 621 F.2d 57 (2d Cir. 1980) [Copyright.gov fair use db entry] – ABC’s re-broadcast of 2 minutes from a 28-minute student film, owned by the university, was not a fair use; some bad faith behavior by ABC.
Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp., 336 F.3d 811 (9th Cir. 2003) – Indexing images to create a search engine was a fair use.
Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 568 U.S. 519 (2013) – US Supreme Court said that first sale doctrine applies to import rights.
Leibovitz v. Paramount Pictures Corp., 137 F.3d 109 (2d Cir. 1998) – Advertisement for “Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult” that superimposed Leslie Nielsen’s photograph over Annie Leibovitz’ famous photograph of a naked, pregnant Demi Moore for the cover of Vanity Fair, was fair use despite its commercial purpose.
Maxtone-Graham v. Burtchaell, 803 F.2d 1253 (2d Cir. 1986), cert. denied. Lengthy quotes taken from a pro-choice book and used in an anti-abortion book were fair use.
NXIVM Corp. v. Ross Institute, 364 F.3d 471 (2d Cir. 2004) – News reporting on a website about an alleged cult’s seminar manual was fair use, notwithstanding violation of non-disclosure agreements.
Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 487 F.3d 701 (9th Cir. 2007) – Indexing images to create a search engine was a fair use.
Princeton University Press v. Michigan Document Services, 74 F.3d 1528 (6th Cir. 1996), cert. denied. Suit brought by Princeton University Press, Macmillan, and St. Martin’s Press. Divided 6th Circuit en banc determined that copy shop coursepacks were not fair use.
Public.Resource.Org v. European Council (2024 March 5) – Standards incorporated into law must be publicly accessible due to “the existence of an overriding public interest, within the meaning of the last clause of Article 4(2) of Regulation No 1049/2001, arising from the principles of the rule of law, transparency, openness and good governance, and justifying the disclosure of the requested harmonised standards, since those standards form part of EU law owing to their legal effects.”
Sega Enterprises Ltd. V. Accolade, Inc., 977 F.2d 1510 (9th Cir. 1993) – Reverse engineering software code to examine the functional aspects of the code was fair use.
Situation Management Systems, Inc. v. ASP Consulting LLC, 560 F.3d 53 (1st Cir. 2009) – Management training materials were infringed by substantially similar materials; the bar for originality is low, and “vapid” content may still meet it.
SOFA Entertainment, Inc. v. Dodger Productions, Inc., 709 F.3d 1273 (9th Cir. March 11, 2013) – Use of a short clip from “The Ed Sullivan Show” to introduce a live performance in the musical “Jersey Boys” was fair use to establish historical context.
Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984) (aka “Sony Betamax”) – time-shifting can be fair use; personal recording for time-shifting can be fair use; video tape recording technology that was capable of substantial non-infringing uses was not liable for contributory infringement
Sundeman v. Seajay Society, 142 F.3d 194 (4th Cir. 1998) – Quotes from deceased author’s unpublished manuscript in scholarly work were fair use.
Suntrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Co., 252 F.3d 165 (11th Cir. 2001) – Critical rewriting of Gone with the Wind was fair use, despite commerciality.
Valancourt v. Garland (5th Cir. Aug. 29, 2023) – mandatory deposit at Library of Congress is unconstitutional as a Fifth Amendment “takings”
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. & J. K. Rowling v. RDR Books, 575 F.Supp.2d 513 (SDNY 2008 – Harry Potter encyclopedia entries with lengthy quotes were not fair use.
Weissman v. Freeman, 868 F.2d 1313 (2nd Cir. 1989) – [Copyright Office fair use db entry] – Scientist co-authors. One author stripping the other author’s name off papers and redistributing was not fair use. Purpose of distribution was to build reputation. Defendants were not joint authors.
Wilder v. Hoiland (SDNY 2024) – Two holdings, both of interest to academics. (1) Assessment of ownership of an NSF-grant-funded, university-administered work — ownership status not clear, because of conflicting copyright statements, and incomplete documentation of copyright ownership policies. (2) Presentation of academic work in an academic presentation was a fair use; different purpose and audience than the original was transformative, notwithstanding verbatim quotations; “the fact that 12 to 20 participants briefly saw the words in a slideshow, and without any evidence that the text was further disseminated, does not represent a potential for substantial market harm for the Text.” [pdf of opinion]
Williams & Wilkins Co. v. United States, 487 F.2d 1345 (Ct. of Claims 1973), affirmed by an equally divided Supreme Ct., 420 U.S. 376 (1975).
Pierre Leval, “Toward a Fair Use Standard”, 103 Harv. L. Rev. 1105 (1990) – This is not a case, but a highly influential law review article by Judge Pierre Leval (then a District Court judge in the Southern District of N.Y., which heard many copyright cases; now on the Second Circuit).