Lawsuit Over Joyce Papers May Clarify Copyright's Fair-Use Exemption for Scholars
Researchers in several disciplines rely on the exemption, which permits scholars and students to use copyrighted material for scholarly and educational purposes without seeking permission from the copyright holders. But lawyers for colleges and publishers are sometimes reluctant to test it in court battles with copyright holders.
The scholar, Carol Loeb Shloss, is an acting professor of English at Stanford University. She has been feuding with Joyce's estate since 2002, when her book about the author's daughter, Lucia, was about to be published. In the book -- Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003) -- Ms. Shloss theorizes that Lucia, who was committed to an asylum, greatly influenced Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake. A character in the novel, Issy, is portrayed as a schizophrenic.