Siva Vaidhyanathan on why, as far as copyright law goes, universities are special

You should check out this great piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education by colleague and friend Siva Vaidhyanathan explaining why, when it comes to copyright law, universities are special — that is, to fulfill their vital mission in our society, they need and deserve extra freedom to copy and use works of art, literature, science, and technology.  Here’s how Siva puts it:

“[U]niversities and their libraries have a special place in copyright law because they have a special place in society. Courts and even Congress have long acknowledged the essential role of copying in the educational process. That’s why the preamble to the section of the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act that outlines “fair use” specifies “teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research” as examples of “fair uses”—uses that, although they involve the copying of protected material, are considered noninfringing because they enable essential public goods.

Universities are not copyright-free zones—far from it. But they do perform special services that often demand flexibility and liberties that enable them to “promote the progress of science and useful arts,” the core mission of copyright as declared by the U.S. Constitution.”

We couldn’t agree more.