Speaker: Camilla A. Hrdy, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Akron School of Law 

Educators and educational institutions regularly engage in copying and frequently rely on the doctrine of "fair use" to avoid liability for copyright infringement. Yet fair use is an inherently unpredictable defense. The main way to predict whether a particular use is fair is to examine how courts have decided on similar cases in the past. This facilitated discussion begins by summarizing fair use cases relevant to educational uses of copyrighted material, and presenting trends that apply within certain categories of uses or across the whole body of educational fair use case law. This discussion should add clarity to this area of law and may help interested parties predict which types of educational uses will qualify as fair use in the future and which will not.

Speaker Bio: 

Professor Hrdy is an Assistant Professor of Law at The University of Akron School of Law. Her primary teaching areas are Intellectual Property Law, Trade Secret Law, Trademark Law, Patent Law, Advanced IP Issues, State and Local Government Law, Civil Procedure (Due Process and Federalism), and Federal Courts. 

Professor Hrdy’s research focuses on the law and policy issues that arise in regional innovation economies, the role of federal, state, and local governments in promoting innovation and economic development, and the relationship between innovation governance and the private sector. She is also a regular blogger on the popular IP scholarship blog, Written Description. 

Professor Hrdy holds a J.D. from Berkeley Law, a B.A. from Harvard University, and an M.Phil. in from the University of Cambridge, Department of History & Philosophy of Science. She clerked for U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack in the Southern District of Texas.