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AAU, APLU Submit Amicus Brief on Scotus Copyright Case

AAU joined APLU in filing an amicus brief in Allen v. Cooper, a case that will be argued before the Supreme Court on November 5. The central question in the case is whether Congress validly abrogated Eleventh Amendment state sovereign immunity through the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act (CRCA), which allows copyright holders to sue states whose copyrights are infringed by those states. Although this case does not directly involve a state college or university, a decision agreeing with the petitioner that Congress had authority to abrogate state sovereign immunity via the CRCA would have negative consequences for state institutions of higher education. The brief asserts that state sovereign immunity “ensures that state universities can continue to serve the vital public goals of education, research, and development…With the increased cost of warding off litigation, state universities will be forced to divert scarce resources currently spent purchasing intellectual property licenses, buying hundreds of thousands of library books, and educating millions of students.”

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