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Stanford Scholar Sues James Joyces Estate Over "Fair Use" of Authors Work
Carol Shloss, an English acting professor at Stanford University, has launched a lawsuit against the estate of James Joyce. She is seeking a declaration that she has the right to use published and unpublished material relating to James Joyce on her scholarly website; the estate of James Joyce has threatened to sue Shloss if she uses the material, claiming it is covered by copyright.
In 2003, Shloss published a book titled “Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake”, which explores the relationship between James Joyce and his daughter Lucia, as well as the importance of that relationship to Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake”. Shloss had to remove substantial documentary evidence from the book before it was published due to threats of litigation from the Joyce estate. Now she wishes to create a supplemental website containing the supporting material that was cut from the book. The Joyce estate has threatened legal action if the website is made available to the public.
The lawsuit claims that the Joyce estate has a history of threatening and starting litigation against people using Joyce’s works. As well, the lawsuit alleges that the Joyce estate has consistently threatened to deny permission to use Joyce’s works if material relating to his daughter (the estate does not hold copyright in those materials) is published.
United States copyright law allows the use of copyrighted works in a scholarly transformative manner, and Shloss’s proposed website will only be accessible to US IP addresses. The Shloss lawsuit is essentially a pre-emptive strike against the Joyce estate. The lead attorney on the case is Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor who is well-known for fighting against narrow interpretations of copyright law. Lessig has described the purpose of Shloss’s lawsuit as follows:
We want to establish that scholars have the clear right to make even extensive use of copyrighted material for critical scholarly purposes. Shloss’s book and website are not copies of, nor substitutes for, Joyce’s works. Accordingly, her work is not the kind that copyright law seeks to prohibit. Instead it is the kind of scholarly, critical work that is protected, and that should always be protected, by fair use. We seek a clear statement from the court that such academic use of copyrighted materials is protected under fair use.
Although the doctrine of fair use in the United States is different from Canada’s fair dealing exceptions, academics and scholars in both countries will no doubt follow this case with interest. If it proceeds, the court’s findings will have important implications for the intersection of copyright law and the principles of academic freedom.
For a copy of Stanford’s press release, visit:
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/Shloss%20v.%20Joyce%20Estate%20Press%20Release.pdf