Campus News

Duke expert to lead discussion on copyright, fair use and Google Books

Kevin Smith, Duke University’s director of scholarly communications, will discuss the copyright and fair use ramifications of the Google Books Project for authors, scholars, libraries and students in using digital books for scholarship and teaching on March 23 at the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries. William Gray Potter, university librarian and associate provost, will deliver opening remarks to the discussion.

Smith’s presentation, “The Heart of the Deal: Getting the Benefits of the Google Books Settlement without Google,” will begin by discussing the good and bad points of the now-defunct Google Books settlement from the ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit brought by authors and publishers against Google and its digital library.

The talk will begin at 10 a.m. in the auditorium of the Russell Building. It is open and free to the public, but advance registration is requested by contacting mariann@uga.edu.

Practical strategies for managing copyright on the part of universities, libraries and individual faculty authors can make it possible to realize the “heart of the deal” without depending on Google, according to Smith. In the process, significant benefits can be gained for scholars and treacherous copyright litigation avoided.

Related topics of interest such as the lawsuit against the HathiTrust, the new ARL Code of Fair Use Best Practices and the copyright litigation against Georgia State University also will be considered.