Once intended to allow for easy accessibility, online education creates copyright problems between U.S universities and academic publishers. Three prominent academic publishers — Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press and Sage Publications — have sued Georgia State University, accusing it of using their copyrighted academic materials in digital format.

The lawsuit is the first of its type since it raises issues about digital rights of the publishing companies. It also contends that professors in this university are assigning materials violating the “fair use” provision of the copyright laws.

The New York Times reports that the publishers are seeking an order, under which the defendants will pay required licensing fees before distributing their academic materials.

Over the years, electronic course packs have become increasingly common, supplanting their physical counterparts. They consist of reading material taken from a variety of printed sources, which is then scanned, compiled and posted on a university’s Web site. By some estimates, electronic course packs now constitute half of all syllabus reading at American colleges and universities.

According to Business Finance & Economy, digital libraries have significant advantage over traditional ones; they don’t need to chemically treat their decaying books, microfilm them, or transcribe them to large-print or audio.

Digital libraries need not keep large and expensive stores of bulky and decaying paper. Libraries can shrink from large warehouses to small rooms and catalogs can be electronic, electronically updatable, and computer generatable, making them easier, faster, and cheaper to search, produce, and update.

Professor Crawford is quoted commenting on the lawsuit filed against Georgia State.

“What publishers don’t understand is they could disaggregate. They could electronically rip apart their books and sell them chapter by chapter, and everyone would be happier.”

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