The federal District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan found on Wednesday that an Ypsilanti, MI copy shop was directly liable (as opposed to contributorily liable) for copyright infringement, by allowing students to copy course packs on its own photocopy machines.  Blackwell Publishing Group, Inc. v. Excel Research Group, LLC  (Docket No. 07-12731, ED Mich, October 14, 2009)[PDF].

The Court in Blackwell found that because Excel maintained a ‘master’ of the course pack, gave it to a student to copy, and accepted payment, Excel was the party actually making the photocopies, regardless of the fact that the students were performing a “self-serve checkout” as part of the commercial transaction.  (All of this despite the fact that the course packs in question were assembled under a university license that expressly permitted students to make copies of course pack materials for themselves at no additional cost.  To me, this indicates that the court was, in effect, indirectly interpreting that underlying license to only apply after one copy was purchased.)

Commentators are now hypothesizing that libraries may be next.  Section 108(f) of the US Copyright Act shields libraries from liability for infringing uses of photocopy machines as long as the libraries conspicuously post a sign stating that the user takes responsibility for copyright infringement.  LibraryLaw Blog questions whether this protection for libraries is invalidated by the Blackwell decision (I think this is unlikely, given the clear intent of Section 108 and the fact that the exemption was specifically crafted in the 1976 Act to protect libraries so that they can continue their vital role in disseminating information.)

Via TechDirt