Princeton University Press v. Michigan Document Services, Inc.
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
99 F.3d 1381 (1996)
- Written by Eric Miller, JD
Facts
Michigan Document Services, Inc. (MDS) (defendant), a for-profit copy shop owned by James Smith (defendant), sold packages of course content assigned to University of Michigan students by their professors. The course packs contained substantial segments of scholarly works—sometimes dozens of pages—reproduced with little or no alteration. Unlike competing shops, MDS neither sought nor obtained permission from academic publishers to reproduce copyrighted content. Princeton University Press and other publishers (the copyright holders) (plaintiffs) brought a copyright-infringement action against MDS, which cited fair use as a defense. The federal district court granted summary judgment in favor of the copyright holders. MDS appealed. A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed, but a majority of the same court’s judges voted to rehear the case en banc.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Nelson, J.)
Dissent (Ryan, J.)
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