Category Archives: Resources

An Update on our Text and Data Mining: Demonstrating Fair Use Project

Posted April 28, 2023

Back in December we announced a new Authors Alliance’s project, Text and Data Mining: Demonstrating Fair Use, which is about lowering and overcoming legal barriers for researchers who seek to exercise their fair use rights, specifically within the context of text data mining (“TDM”) research under current regulatory exemptions. We’ve heard from lots of you […]

Fair Use Week 2023: Looking Back at Google Books Eight Years Later

Posted February 24, 2023

This post is authored by Authors Alliance Senior Staff Attorney, Rachel Brooke.  More recent members and readers may not be aware that Authors Alliance was founded in the wake of Authors Guild v. Google,  a class action fair use case in the Second Circuit that was litigated for nearly a decade, and finally resolved in […]

Fair Use Week 2023: How to Evade Fair Use in Two Easy Steps

Posted February 23, 2023

This post is by Dave Hansen and also posted to the Fair Use Week blog here. Fair use is an essential part of the Copyright Act’s careful balance—on the one hand protecting rightsholders’ interests, while on the other “[permitting and requiring] courts to avoid rigid application of the copyright statute when, on occasion, it would […]

Fair Use Week 2023: Resource Roundup

Posted February 21, 2023

Authors who want to incorporate source materials into their writings with confidence may find themselves faced with more questions than answers. What exactly does fair use mean? What factors do courts consider when evaluating claims of fair use? How does fair use support authors’ research, writing, and publishing goals? Fortunately, help is at hand! This […]

Announcing the “Text and Data Mining: Demonstrating Fair Use” Project

Posted December 22, 2022

We’re very pleased to announce a new project for 2023, “Text and Data Mining: Demonstrating Fair Use,” which is generously supported by the Mellon Foundation. The project will focus on lowering and overcoming legal barriers for researchers who seek to exercise their fair use rights, specifically within the context of text data mining (“TDM”) research […]

US Copyright Office Defends Artists’ Rights to Terminate their Copyright Transfers

Posted November 11, 2022

UPDATE: You can find Authors Alliance’s comment on the Copyright Office’s proposed rulemaking here. “Termination of Transfer,” is a legal tool that allows authors to recapture rights previously handed over to another party, even if their contract contains language to the contrary. It’s a really great idea. The policy rationale is that we need a […]

Fair Use Week 2022: Resource Roundup

Posted February 28, 2022

Authors who want to incorporate source materials into their writings with confidence may find themselves faced with more questions than answers. What exactly does fair use mean? What factors do courts consider when evaluating claims of fair use? How does fair use support authors’ research, writing, and publishing goals? Fortunately, help is at hand! This […]

Q&A with Peter Kaufman: Open Access Publishing and Access to Knowledge

Posted November 30, 2021

In today’s post, as a part of our series of open access success stories that spotlight noteworthy openly accessible books and their authors, we’re featuring Peter Kaufman of MIT Open Learning. Kaufman made his new book, The New Enlightenment and the Fight to Free Knowledge, available for free under a CC-BY license upon its publication […]