Tuesday, July 29, 2014

NY Federal Court Sides with Westlaw and LexisNexis, Holding that Reselling Legal Briefs is Fair Use

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Under section 102 of the Copyright Act, copyright protection extends to “original works of authorship.”  Based on that definition, lawyers may believe that legal documents created while representing clients constitute protectable original works of authorship that cannot be copied or otherwise commercially exploited without their authorization.  However, a recent federal court decision may call that belief into question.

In a Memorandum and Order issued July 3, 2014 in case 1:12-cv-01340-JSR (Document 84), Judge Rakoff of the Southern District of New York sided for Westlaw and LexisNexis (the “publishers”) against lawyers Edward White and Kenneth Elan (the “lawyers”) based on a finding that the publishers’ resale of legal briefs falls under the fair use defense to copyright infri…


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