L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award

The L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award

The Patterson Copyright Award recognizes contributions of an individual or group that pursues and supports the Constitutional purpose of the U.S. Copyright Law, fair use, and the public domain. The award is named after L. Ray Patterson, a key legal figure who explained and justified the importance of the public domain and fair use. He helped articulate that copyright law was negatively shifting from its original purpose and overly favoring rights of copyright holders. His book, The Nature of Copyright: A Law of Users’ Rights, is the definitive book on the constitutional underpinnings of copyright and the critical importance of the public domain.

Past Award Recipients

Year Recipient Title
2017 Jonathan Band Copyright Attorney and Adjunct Professor, Georgetown Law School
2016 Melissa Levine Principal Investigator, Copyright Review Management System
2014 Georgia Harper Scholarly Communications Advisor, The University of Texas at Austin Libraries
2012 Winston Tabb Dean of Libraries and Museums, Johns Hopkins University
2011 Peter Suber Open Access Project Director, Public Knowledge
2010 Fred von Lohmann Senior Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation
2009 Jack Bernard Assistant General Counsel, University of Michigan
2008 Peggy Hoon Special Assistant to the Provost for Copyright Administration, North Carolina State University
2007 Peter Jaszi Professor of Law and Director of the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic, American University’s Washington College of Law
2006 Prudence Adler Associate Executive Director, Federal Relations and Information Policy, Association of Research Libraries
2005 Kenneth Crews Columbia University