Newsgroups: bit.listserv.circplus
Date:         Tue, 28 Jul 1992 17:48:00 EDT
              <CIRCPLUS@IDBSU.BITNET>
From:         "Deb.Lambert" <20676DAL@MSU.BITNET>
Subject:      Mich. copyright lawsuit

At the request of several people on the list, I am posting an explanation of
the reference I made to the Michigan Document Service Lawsuit in my posting
about Reserve staffing on July 16th.  To the people who requested this
information, I apologize for the delay.

After the March 1991 Kinko's lawsuit, the "Michigan Document Service" (MDS),
a copy shop owned by Jim Smith (not affiliated with MSU), distributed a
paper title "Copyright Law and the case against Kinko's" to professors on the
Wayne State University, University of Michigan and Michigan State University
campuses. This 12 page document gives a history of copyright law, an
interpretation of fair use, an analysis of the Kinko's case, and an argument
of why MDS does not believe that this precedence has changed copyright law and
why they believe the judgement in the Kinko's case was wrong. They summarize
by asking Profs to contact publishers and demand that they use the
Copyright Clearance Center to standardize royalties, or else boycott the
publishers by not assigning their books in classes and by not publishing
with them.

In late February 1992, three publishers (Princeton University Press, McMillan,
Inc., and St. Martin's Press) who are stand-ins for the general membership
of the Association of American Publishers, filed a lawsuit in a Detroit
Federal Court charging MDS with copyright infringement for including the
publisher's materials in coursepacks without permission. Charges were brought
up against the company and the owner, asking for $600,000 in statutory
damages from MDS and $1,200,000 in damages from Jim Smith. The alleged
infringing articles were from coursepacks used in classes at U of M. An April
1993 jury trial has been set, and they are currently undergoing a "discovery
process". When I talked to the MDS office yesterday morning, they believed
that 3 counts are going to be thrown out by the federal court next week,
because it was discovered that the publishers no longer owned the copyright
of three articles, leaving only 4 counts. The publishers are using the same
attorneys who were used against Kinko's, and an injunction has already been
passed against MDS, ordering them not to copy material from those publishers
without copyright permission. The spirit in which MDS is going in to this is
stated by Jim Smith in his newsletter: "Michigan Document believes that the
only solution to the problems present in this case is a negotiated settlement
that guarantees access to educational materials and standardizes royalty
rates. The terms of such an agreement can only result from talks which involve
all parties who have a direct interest in the matter. This includes
publishers, authors, coursepack publishers, professors who use the materials
in their classes and the students who ultimately foot the bill. It is our
position that we will settle for nothing less than the suspension of
litigation and the start of meaningful negotiations to settle this question
once and for all."

MDS is willing to discuss any questions, suggestions, or recommendations that
ANYONE has, and they feel that the wider the audience, the broader the
perspective, and the better chance they will have. You can call 1-800-451-1449
(MDS) to discuss any of the issues surrounding this case, or just get on their
mailing list for the "Copy/Right News".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deb Lambert                             INTERNET: 20676dal@ibm.cl.msu.edu
Assigned Reading Services Coordinator     BITNET: 20676dal@msu
Michigan State University Libraries        PHONE: (517) 353-8721
East Lansing, MI  48824-1048                 FAX: (517) 336-1445
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