The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) recently announced the release of the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries, a statement of "fair and reasonable approaches to fair use developed by and for librarians who support academic inquiry and higher education."

The release has gotten a fair amount of attention given recent lawsuits around e-reserves. For example, see this take from Inside Higher Ed on the ARL release : Defining Fair Use

The ARL document takes an aggressive approach to fair use, one that is sure to be frowned upon by content producers such as the MPAA and the Authors Guild. The document's principles includes the following statement, "It is fair use to make appropriately tailored course-related content available to enrolled students via digital networks."

We are sure the debate is just getting started.