Cop-Out on Copying

As a small publisher of medical journals and books, the Williams & Wilkins Co. of Baltimore felt that it was being done in by the Xerox machine. The expanding practice of photocopying had led to the duplication of more and more articles and excerpts from more and more publications. Williams & Wilkins concluded that its copyrights were being infringed and went to court. The company sued the biggest offender, the U.S. Government, whose National Institutes of Health and National Library of Medicine had duplicated a total of 2.2 million pages from all sources in 1970 alone. It was the first case to raise the issue, and when it reached the Supreme Court, no fewer than 19 interested groups, from the Authors League to the American Medical Association, rushed to file friend-of-court briefs.

Last week the court reported that it was unable to come to a decision. With Harry Blackmun disqualifying himself, the remaining eight Justices split 4-4, a vote that left standing the decision of a lower court. That decision by the U.S. Court of Claims had been in favor of the Government copiers; it had rejected the findings of one of its commissioners, who had decided for Williams & Wilkins (TIME, May 1,1972).

More lawsuits are sure to raise the issue again. But before that happens, Congress may yet resolve the matter. For the past decade, it has been trying and failing to replace the current copyright law, which dates from 1909, and this year it is expected finally to pass a new law. Many copyright experts favor some kind of compromise, for example, legislation providing for a payment by subscribing organizations that want the right to duplicate. But no one can predict whether Congress will choose that solution.

By a 5-to-4 vote, the court decided a month ago that public school authorities must give a student an informal hearing before suspending him. Last week, by the same narrow vote, the court went a step further and ruled that a school board official may now be held liable for damages if "he knew or reasonably should have known that the action he took ... would violate the constitutional rights of the student affected." As he had in the earlier case, former Virginia School Board Member Lewis Powell spoke for the dissenting Justices and worried whether, in light of the decision, "qualified persons will continue ... to volunteer for service in public education." But the majority felt that qualified officials are well aware of students' rights and should act with the fairness called for by the 1871 Civil Rights Act. So it directed a lower court to determine whether two Arkansas high school students involved in a punch-spiking incident had been expelled without due respect for their constitutional rights.

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