Stanford Professor Carol Schloss's copyright "misuse" lawsuit against the James Joyce estate has been settled. The AP report is here. Lawprof Alfred Yen is disappointed: "the lack of final judgment preserves the ambiguity that copyright holders sometimes exploit to stifle criticism they don't like."
My most recent post on the case, after the complaint survived a motion to dismiss last month, is here.
UPDATE: More disappointment from lawprof William McGeveran: "This case was exciting precisely because it seemed like a good prospect to get some binding case law on the books about the scope of fair use for historians and literary scholars. A settlement doesn’t count as 'the law' in the same way at all. ... This is the famous ethical quandary of all lawyers involved in 'impact litigation' — you are using one person’s problems as a vehicle to change the law, but your first and greatest duty is to the client. Often, if you can get a great settlement, then you have to forego the larger-scale legal change you’d sought."
