Turnitin suit reached its first decision

The Turnitin lawsuit has run its course at the first court and an appeal hasn’t been filed yet.

It played out differently than what I expected. First off, Turnitin’s use was considered transformative and fair use. That’s not a huge surprise. Also, the fact that a user could enter in a Shakespearian quotation and receive a full copy of a student’s paper who used it was not brought into the case. I guess that’s because the user would be infringing, not Turnitin.

The big surprise for me was that the minors were held to the contract that they clicked through, and it was not found to be agreeing under duress. Apparently in Virginia it’s not duress if pressed by a third party (the schools in this case), and even if it were it fell short of the “unlawful or wrong act” test. Besides that, Virginia law has interesting nuances when it comes to minors entering contracts.

Taken from the decision:

…

In Virginia, a contract with an infant is voidable by the infant upon attaining the age of majority. See Zelnick v. Adams, 263 Va. 601, 608 (2002) (citing Mustard v. Wohlford’s Heirs, 56. Va, (15 Gratt.) 329, 337 (1859)). However, the infancy defense cannot function as “a sword to be used to the injury of others, although the law intends it simply as a shield to protect the infant from injustice and wrong.” MacGreal v. Taylor, 167 U.S. 688, 701 (1897). In other words, “[i]f an infant enters into any contract subject to conditions or stipulations, he cannot take the benefit of the contract without the burden of the conditions or stipulations.” 5 Williston on Contracts 9:14 (4th ed. 2007).

Plantiffs received benefits from entering into the Agreement with iParadigms. They received a grade from their teachers, allowing them the opportunity to maintain good standing in the classes in which they were enrolled. Additionally, Plaintiffs gained the benefit of good standing to bring the present suit. Plaintiffs cannot use the infancy defense to void their contractual obligations while retaining the benefits of the contract. Thus, Plaintiffs’ infancy defense fails.

…

Wow. Standing to sue is considered a benefit? If that was the only reason that the infancy defense was rejected I’d be very upset.

More details are at Ars Technica.