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Kenneth D. Crews has been named the first recipient of the "L. Ray Patterson Award: In Support of Users' Rights" by the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±app's () Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) Copyright Advisory Committee. The L. Ray Patterson Award was established to recognize the contributions of an individual who pursues and supports the Constitutional purpose of U.S. copyright law, fair use, and the public domain.

Professor Crews is Samuel R. Rosen II Professor of Law, Professor of Library and Information Science and Director of the Copyright Management Center at Indiana University/Purdue University in Indianapolis (IUPUI). During his tenure at IUPUI, Crews has advanced the need for ongoing balance in copyright law in order to preserve and practice fair use and other user rights. Crews is probably best known in the library community for his energizing and informative copyright presentations and educational workshops that stress the opportunities librarians and educators have to exercise user rights under the law.

Crews represented the library and higher educational communities at the Conference on Fair Use (CONFU) from 1994-1998, a working group established by the National Information Infrastructure (NII) of the Clinton administration to discuss fair use in the digital environment. In 2000, in collaboration with OITP, Crews served as instructor of a 12-week Copyright Tutorial, a free educational service delivered via e-mail to members. With over 7,000 subscribers, the Copyright Tutorial continues to be the largest single educational event ever sponsored by the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±app. In 2002, Crews prepared an analysis of the Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act to guide the library and educational communities through new copyright exemptions as they apply to distance education and the digital classroom. For the last 4 years, Crews has worked with the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright, and Competition Law in Munich, Germany. He teaches every year in The Munich Intellectual Property Law Center.