Fair Use in Theory and Practice: Reflections on Its History and the Google Case

Director Sanford G. Thatcher's perspective on copyright reflects the experience of trying to survive in a perilous enterprise that exists with one foot in the commercial marketplace and the other in the academic community, creating a condition of chronic schizophrenia. The press he directs is dedicated to serving the mission of disseminating scholarship but is required (under current conditions, anyway) to rely on income from sales to pay most of its bills. Because university presses operate so close to the margin, this sector of publishing is especially vulnerable to expansive interpretations of 'fair use.'