On March 31, 2016, the District Court for the Northern District of Georgia released its opinion on remand in the Georgia State University e-reserves case, Cambridge University Press v. Becker. The district court originally determined in 2012 that of the 99 instances of claimed infringement, 94 of the cases were fair use and only 5 were infringing. The case appeared before the district court again after the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded the case in October 2014, directing the trial court to revisit its fair use analysis. The Eleventh Circuit’s opinion rejected an arithmetic approach to the four fair use factors (that is, the idea that if three of the factors favor fair use, but one disfavors fair use, then fair use will always apply).

On remand, the district court considered 48 infringement claims and revisited the fair use assertions by Georgia State University. Judge Evans found that of the 48 claims, 41 were non-infringing fair uses. More analysis of the opinion will be available shortly.

H/T: Kevin Smith