Judge Dismisses UCLA Copyright Case: Could Impact Authors Guild/HathiTrust Case

The Chronicle reports on a case brought against UCLA for breaching copyright in using streaming video.  James Grimmelmann, an NY Law School professor believes the dismissal of the case could have repercussions for the recently filed Authors Guild/HathiTrust case.  Gimmelman is quoted as saying "If the HathiTrust suit were to be decided tomorrow by the same court, it would be dismissed.”  (Grimmelmann has been a close follower of the Google books digitization program from it's inception on his blog).

From the article: 

But U.S. District Court Judge Consuelo B. Marshall found multiple problems with their arguments. Among the most important: He didn’t buy the plaintiffs’ claim that UCLA had waived its constitutional “sovereign immunity,” a principle that shields states—and state universities—from being sued without their consent in federal court. The judge also held that the association, which doesn’t own the copyrights at issue in the dispute, failed to establish its standing to bring the case.

The decision means “universities will have a little more breathing room for using media,” says James Grimmelmann, an associate professor at New York Law School.