Full opinion text
TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge: Three publishing houses, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Sage Publications, Inc. (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) allege that members of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia and officials at Georgia State University (“GSU”) (collectively, “Defendants”) infringed Plaintiffs’ copyrights by maintaining a policy which allows GSU professors to make digital copies of excerpts of Plaintiffs’ books available to students without paying Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs alleged seventy-four individual instances of infringement, which took place during three academic terms in 2009. The District Court issued an order finding that Plaintiffs failed to establish a prima facie case of infringement in twenty-six instances, that the fair use defense applied in forty-three instances, and that Defendants had infringed Plaintiffs’ copyrights in the remaining five instances. Finding that GSU’s policy caused the five instances of infringement, the District Court granted declaratory and injunctive relief to Plaintiffs. Nevertheless, the District Court found that Defendants were the prevailing party and awarded them costs and attorneys’ fees. Because we find that the District Court’s fair use analysis was in part erroneous, we reverse the District Court’s judgment; vacate the injunction, declaratory relief, and award of costs and fees; and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. I. A. Like many recent issues in copyright law, this is a case in which technological advances have created a new, more efficient means of delivery for copyrighted works, causing copyright owners and consumers to struggle to define the appropriate boundaries of copyright protection in the new digital marketplace. These boundaries must be drawn carefully in order to assure that copyright law serves its intended purpose, which is to promote the creation of new works for the public good by providing authors and other creators with an economic incentive to create. See Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U.S. 151, 156, 95 S.Ct. 2040, 2044, 45 L.Ed.2d 84 (1975). If copyright’s utilitarian goal is to be met, we must be careful not to place overbroad restrictions on the use of copyrighted works, because to do so would prevent would-be authors from effectively building on the ideas of others. Some unpaid use of copyrighted materials must be allowed in order to prevent copyright from functioning as a straightjacket that stifles the very creative activity it seeks to foster. If we allow too much unpaid copying, however, we risk extinguishing the economic incentive to create that copyright is intended to provide. The fair use doctrine provides a means by which a court may ascertain the appropriate balance in a given case if the market actors cannot do so on their own. Fair use is a defense that can excuse what would otherwise be an infringing use of copyrighted material. See 17 U.S.C. § 107 (“[T]he fair use of a copyrighted work ... is not an infringement of copyright.”). To prevail on a claim of fair use, a defendant must convince the court that allowing his or her unpaid use of copyrighted material would be equitable and consonant with the purposes of copyright. In order to make this determination, the court must carefully evaluate the facts of the case at hand in light of four considerations, which are codified in the Copyright Act of 1976: (1) the purpose of the allegedly infringing use, (2) the nature of the original work, (3) the size and significance of the portion of the original work that was copied, and (4) the effect of the allegedly infringing use on the potential market for or value of the original. Id. These factors establish the contours within which a court may investigate whether, in a given case, a finding of fair use would serve the objectives of copyright. Here, we are called upon to determine whether the unpaid copying of scholarly works by a university for use by students — facilitated by the development of systems for digital delivery over the Internet — should be excused under the doctrine of fair use. Plaintiffs are three publishing houses that specialize in academic works. Plaintiff Cambridge University Press (“Cambridge”) is the not-for-profit publishing house of the University of Cambridge in England, having an American branch headquartered in New York City. Plaintiff Oxford University Press, Inc. (“Oxford”) is a not-for-profit United States corporation associated with Oxford University in England and headquartered in New York City. Plaintiff Sage Publications, Inc. (“Sage”) is a for-profit Delaware corporation, headquartered in Sherman Oaks, California. Plaintiffs do not publish the large, general textbooks commonly used in entry-level university courses. Rather, Plaintiffs publish advanced scholarly works, which might be used in upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses. Cambridge and Oxford publish scholarly books and journals on niche subject areas. Their works involved in this case include research-based monographs, which aré “small, single author books which give in-depth analysis of a narrow topic,” Cambridge Univ. Press v. Becker, 863 F.Supp.2d 1190, 1212 (N.D.Ga.2012) (footnote omitted), instructional books, trade books, and other works on academic topics. Sage primarily publishes books on the social sciences. AH' three plaintiffs publish, in addition to works by a single author, “edited books” which feature the contributions of multiple authors. Id. Plaintiffs market their books to professors who teach at universities and colleges. Cambridge and Oxford regularly send complimentary copies of their publications to professors. Sage provides trial copies upon request. Plaintiffs intend that professors use Plaintiffs’ publications in their work ánd assign them as required reading so that students will purchase them. Rather than assigning whole books, some professors assign or suggest excerpts from Plaintiffs’ books as part of the curriculum for their courses. Professors might do this by putting the work on reserve at the university library so that students can visit the library to read an assigned excerpt. Or, professors might prepare a bound, photocopied, paper “coursepack” containing excerpts from several works for a particular course. Often, a third-party copy shop assembles these coursepacks, performing the copying and binding, obtaining the necessary licenses from publishers, and charging students a fee for the finished coursepack. In recent years, however, universities— following the trend with regard to distribution of many forms of media the world over — have increasingly abandoned paper coursepacks in favor of digital distribution of excerpts over the Internet. GSU is a public university in Atlanta, Georgia. It is part of the University System of Georgia, and is overseen by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. GSU maintains two on-campus systems known as “ERes” and “uLearn” for digital distribution of course materials to students. ERes (short for “E-Reserves”) is an “electronic reserve system” hosted on servers maintained by GSU and managed by GSU’s library staff. Since 2004, GSU has used ERes to allow GSU students to access course materials — including course syllabi, class notes, sample exams, and excerpts from books and journals — on the Internet via a web browser. In order to place an excerpt from a book or journal on ERes, a professor must either provide a personal copy of the work to the GSU library staff or indicate that the GSU library owns a copy. A member of the library staff then scans the excerpt to convert it to a digital format and posts the scanned copy to ERes. GSU students are given access to an ERes website specific to the courses in which they are enrolled. On each course-specific ERes website, students find their reading assignments listed by title. The scanned excerpts are accessible via hyperlink. When a student clicks a link for a particular assignment, the student receives a digital copy of a scanned excerpt that the student may view, print, save to his or her computer, and potentially keep indefinitely. ERes course websites are password-protected in order to limit access to the students in the particular course. Once a course ends, students no longer have access to the ERes website for that course. uLearn is a “course management system” hosted on servers maintained by the Board of Regents. Like ERes, uLearn provides course-specific webpages through which professors may make course material available, including digital copies of excerpts from books, which students in the course may view, print, or save. The most significant difference between the ERes and uLearn systems is that uLearn allows professors to upload digital copies of reading material directly to their course websites while ERes forces professors to rely on GSU library personnel to upload reading material for them. ERes and uLearn have been popular at GSU. For example, during the Spring 2009 term, paper coursepacks were offered for only about fifteen courses, while instructors in hundreds of courses made readings available on ERes. Thus, the excerpts from larger works that make up some portion of course readings at GSU, and which were once distributed to students via a paper coursepack purchased at the university bookstore, are now largely distributed to students via digital download on the Internet, that the students pay for only indirectly via tuition and fees. There exists a well-established system for the licensing of excerpts of copyrighted works. Copyright Clearance Center (“CCC”) is ' a not-for-profit corporation with headquarters in Danvers, Massachusetts. CCC licenses excerpts from copyrighted works for a fee, acting on behalf of publishers who choose to make their works available through CCC. These licenses are called “permissions.” All three Plaintiffs offer excerpt-specific permissions to photocopy or digitally reproduce portions of their works, which may be obtained directly from Plaintiffs or through CCC. Permissions are not, however, available for licensed copying of excerpts from all of Plaintiffs’ works. CCC offers a variety of permissions services to various categories of users, including corporate, educational, and institutional users. One such service, the Academic Permissions Service (“APS”), licenses educational users to make print copies on a per-use basis. CCC also offers an electronic course content service (“ECCS”) for licensing of digital excerpts by educational users on a per-use basis, that — in 2008, the year for which evidence on the question was presented — offered only a small percentage of the works that were available through APS. ECCS is designed for electronic reserve systems such as ERes and uLearn. Software is available that would allow GSU library personnel to place an order with CCC for a permission to provide students with a digital copy of an excerpt via ERes. CCC also offers an Academic Repertory License Service (“ARLS”) which affords subscribers access to excerpts from a set group of about nine million titles, approximately 17 percent of which are available in digital format. Sage participates in ARLS and did so in 2009, Oxford participated in 2009 with regard to journals but not books, and Cambridge does not participate. GSU did not and does not subscribe to this program. When the GSU bookstore assembles and sells a paper coursepack containing excerpts from copyrighted works, GSU pays permissions fees for use of the excerpts. The central issue in this case is under what circumstances GSU must pay permissions fees to post a digital copy of an excerpt of Plaintiffs’ works to ERes or uLearn. B. On April 15, 2008, Plaintiffs filed their original complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. Plaintiffs alleged that hundreds of GSU professors have made thousands of copyrighted works — including works owned or controlled by Plaintiffs— available on GSU’s electronic reserve systems without obtaining permissions from copyright holders, and- that GSU’s administration facilitated, encouraged, and induced this practice.' Plaintiffs sued Defendants in their official capacities as GSU officials, claiming (1) direct copyright infringement caused by the officials “scanning,- copying, displaying, and distributing Plaintiffs’ copyrighted material;” (2) contributory copyright infringement caused by the officials’ “facilitating, encouraging, and inducing librarians and professors to scan, copy, display, and distribute Plaintiffs’ copyrighted material” and “students to view, download, copy and further distribute [Plaintiffs’] copyrighted material;” and (8) vicarious copyright infringement caused by the officials’ inducing GSU employees and students to copy Plaintiffs’ copyrighted material, profiting from this practice, and failing to stop it despite having the right and ability to do so. Doc. 1, at 25-28. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief. ’ Plaintiffs supported their allegations with numerous examples of GSU professors posting excerpts of Plaintiffs’ works on GSU’s electronic reserve systems. Defendants filed an Answer, denying Plaintiffs’ allegations of infringement; claiming sovereign immunity and Eleventh Amendment immunity based on Defendants’ status as state officials; and asserting a defense of fair use because “any alleged use of copyrighted materials was for the purpose of teaching, scholarship or research and for nonprofit educational purposes.” Doc. 14, at 2. On December 15, 2008, Plaintiffs filed their First Amended Complaint. The First Amended Complaint added several members of the Board of Regents as Defendants, alleging that they were ultimately responsible for the alleged acts of infringement at GSU because of their supervisory authority over the University System of Georgia. Defendants’ Answer to the First Amended Complaint again denied infringement, asserted fair use, and claimed sovereign immunity and Eleventh Amendment immunity for all Defendants. In late December 2008, the University System of Georgia convened a Select Committee on Copyright to review GSU’s then-existing copyright policy, which was called the “Regents’ Guide to Understanding Copyright & Educational Fair Use.” On February 17, 2009, the Select Committee announced a new copyright policy for GSU (the “2009 Policy”), which went into effect the same day. Under the 2009 Policy, a revised version of which remains in effect today, GSU professors who wish to post an excerpt of a copyrighted work on ERes or uLearn for distribution to their students must first determine whether they believe that doing so would be fair use. In order to make this determination, professors must fill out a “Fair Use Checklist” for each excerpt. The Checklist allows GSU professors to perform a version of the analysis a court might perform should the professor claim fair use in a subsequent copyright infringement suit. As described above, see supra part I.A, the fair use analysis involves a consideration of whether allowing the unpaid use in a given case would be equitable and serve the objectives of copyright in light of four statutory factors, see 17 U.S.C. § 107. For each factor, the Checklist provides several criteria that purportedly weigh either for or against a finding of fair use, each with a corresponding checkbox. The Checklist instructs professors to check each criterion that applies, and then add up the checks to determine whether the factor weighs in favor of or against a finding of fair use. After making this tally, the Checklist explains that “[wjhere the factors favoring fair use outnumber those against it, reliance on fair use is justified. Where fewer than half the factors favor fair use, instructors should seek permission from the rights holder.” Doc. 235-2, at 7. Thus, under the 2009 Policy, a GSU professor may post an excerpt of a copyrighted work on ERes or uLearn without obtaining a permission from the copyright holder if the professor first decides that doing so would be protected by the doctrine of fair use, according to the criteria set forth in the Checklist. After completing an initial round of discovery, both parties moved for summary judgment on February 26, 2010. Plaintiffs alleged that the 2009 Policy had failed to curb the alleged infringement of their copyrighted works, and argued that they were entitled to summary judgment on all claims. Plaintiffs argued that they were entitled to an injunction based on the alleged infringements listed in their First Amended Complaint, that had occurred prior to enactment of the 2009 Policy, and added allegations regarding new instances of infringement, which also occurred prior to enactment of the 2009 Policy. Plaintiffs also argued that injunctive relief was appropriate as to Defendants under Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), which permits prospective injunctive relief against state officers in their official capacities. Defendants argued that they were entitled to summary judgment on all claims. Defendants also contended that Plaintiffs were only entitled to prospective declaratory and injunctive relief as to ongoing and continuous conduct, and so the District Court should only consider alleged infringements that occurred since GSU enacted the 2009 Policy. Thus, Defendants contended, any claims based on GSU’s superseded pre-2009 policy were moot.. Defendants also claimed that GSU’s adoption of the 2009 Policy had substantially reduced the amount of Plaintiffs’ works used by GSU professors. On August 11, 2010, and August 12, 2010, the District Court ordered Plaintiffs to produce a list of all claimed infringements of their works that had occurred at GSU during the period following enactment of the 2009 Policy, which included the 2009 “Maymester” (a three-week term), the 2009 summer semester, and the 2009 fall semester. The District Court also required that Plaintiffs provide certain information about the alleged infringements, including the name of the course in which the excerpt of the work was used, the instructor’s name, a title and description of the copied work, the name of the owner of the work’s copyright, the number of pages and chapters in the work, the number of pages and chapters copied, the retail price to purchase the entire work, and the potential cost to license each excerpt at issue. On August 20, 2010, Plaintiffs filed a list showing 126 claimed infringements. On September 30, 2010, the District Court denied Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment. The District Court granted in part and denied in part Defendants’ motion for summary judgment, granting summary judgment to Defendants on the claims of direct and vicarious infringement, and denying summary judgment to Defendants on the claim of contributory infringement. In its summary judgment order, the District Court construed the First Amended Complaint as claiming that the 2009 Policy as applied to Plaintiffs’ works “has led to continuing abuse of the fair use privilege.” Doc. 235, at 5. Accordingly, the District Court agreed that only alleged acts of infringement that took place after GSU enacted the 2009 Policy were relevant to Plaintiffs’ claims, and held that it would only consider those acts. However, the District Court declined to consider at that time the list of alleged post-2009 Policy infringements that Plaintiffs had provided because the parties had not yet conducted discovery as to these allegations. The District Court granted summary judgment for Defendants on the direct infringement claim because it found that GSU as an entity is not itself capable of copying or making fair use determinations, and that Defendants cannot be held liable under a respondeat superior theory because “respondeat superior applies in the copyright context as a basis for finding vicarious liability, not direct liability.” Id. at 19. With regard to the vicarious infringement claim, the District Court held that summary judgment for Defendants was appropriate because it found that there was no evidence to support the conclusion that GSU had profited from the allegedly infringing use of Plaintiffs’ works by GSU personnel, or that GSU’s shift to digital distribution of excerpts via its electronic reserve system served as a “direct draw for students or that Defendants have a direct financial interest in copyright infringement.” Id. at 21. With regard to the contributory infringement claim, the District Court denied both Plaintiffs’ and Defendants’ motions for summary judgment, finding that the record was silent as to whether the 2009 Policy “encourage[s] improper application of the fair use defense.” Id. at 30. The District Court further held: Going forward, in order to show that Defendants are responsible for the copyright infringements alleged in this case, Plaintiffs must show that the 2009 Copyright Policy resulted in ongoing and continuous misuse of the fair use defense. To do so, Plaintiffs must put forth evidence of a sufficient number of instances of infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrights to show such ongoing and continuous misuse. Defendants will have the burden of showing that each specified instance of 2009 Copyright Policy infringement was a fair use. Both sides will be limited to the list of claimed infringements produced in response to the Court’s August 11, 2010 and August 12, 2010 orders. Id. at 30. On October 20, 2010, Plaintiffs filed a motion for partial reconsideration of the District Court’s grant of summary judgment for Defendants. Plaintiffs argued, in relevant part, that the District Court erred in dismissing the direct infringement claim because courts routinely hold employers responsible for acts of copyright infringement committed by their employees through the doctrine of respondeat superior without recourse to secondary infringement doctrines. The District Court granted Plaintiffs’ motion, reviving Plaintiffs’ claim of direct infringement, striking Plaintiffs’ label of the claim as “direct infringement,” and construing the claim as an “indirect infringement” claim. On November 4, 2010, Defendants moved to dismiss Plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Defendants argued that Plaintiffs’ claims were barred by the Eleventh Amendment, and that Plaintiffs could not make use of the Ex parte Young exception to Eleventh Amendment immunity because Defendants were not personally violating — or threatening to violate — copyright law. Defendants contended that their supervisory role over GSU’s policies and personnel did not create a sufficient causal nexus to the infringing activity, and thus Ex parte Young did not apply. The District Court denied Defendants’ motion to dismiss, holding that it would not presently address Defendants’ argument that Ex parte Young did not apply because “Plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint currently alleges that Defendants’ own copying, scanning, displaying, and distributing of Plaintiffs’ materials violated Plaintiffs’ copyrights.” Doc. 267, at 12. On November 5, 2010, the District Court ordered discovery regarding GSU’s use of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted material during the 2009 Maymester, the 2009 summer term, and the 2009 fall term. In response, on March 15, 2011, the parties filed a'joint document detailing ninety-nine alleged acts of infringement that occurred during that period. This filing included the name of each allegedly infringed work, the circumstances of the alleged infringement, and Defendants’ objections to each claimed infringement. For all ninety-nine, Defendants claimed fair use. In some instances, Defendants also argued that Plaintiffs had not provided evidence of a copyright registration for the work in question. Defendants also objected to the method by which Plaintiffs had calculated the ratio between the number of pages in an excerpt and the total number of pages in the work. Plaintiffs had made these calculations based on the total number of pages in the textual body of the work, excluding parts such as tables of contents, indexes, and prefaces. Defendants argued that these non-body parts of a work should be included in the total page count of a work. On May 11, 2011, in response to the District Court’s Consolidated Pretrial Order dated May 2, 2011, Plaintiffs filed a proposed order for injunctive relief. Plaintiffs’ proposed injunction would essentially limit GSU to copying that fell within the parameters set forth in the Agreement on Guidelines for Classroom Copying in Not-For-Profit Educational Institutions with Respect to Books and Periodicals (the “Classroom Guidelines”). See Doc. 300-1, at 3-4. A bench trial began on May 17, 2011. At the close of Plaintiffs’ case, the District Court granted Defendants’ motion for judgment on the contributory infringement claim, leaving only the claim that the 2009 Policy directly caused copyright infringement. On June 1, 2011, Plaintiffs voluntarily filed a revised list of seventy-five claimed infringements, relating to sixty-four separate works. This list dropped twenty-five of the claimed infringements from the joint list filed on March 15, 2011, and added one new claim. The District Court accepted Plaintiffs’ revised list, including the added claim, because it found that the added claim featured the same copied material as a previously identified claim, and that both sides had an adequate opportunity to address it at trial. Cambridge Univ. Press, 863 F.Supp.2d at 1204-05 n. 7. However, the District Court construed two claims of infringement involving the same copied material in two different semesters as one claim, because the evidence showed that the material was posted only once for the same multi-semester course, and that the material was accessed during only one semester. Id. at 1289 n. 89. Thus, in reaching its decision, the District Court considered a total of seventy-four individual claims of infringement. On May 11, 2012, the District Court issued an order holding that Defendants had infringed Plaintiffs’ copyright in five of the seventy-four instances at issue. Id. at 1363. First, the District Court held that Plaintiffs were entitled to the benefit of the Ex parte Young exception to Eleventh Amendment immunity because the GSU Defendants were responsible for the creation and implementation of the 2009 policy, and the Board of Regents at least tacitly approved it. Id. at 1209. After holding that it could appropriately enter injunctive relief pursuant to Ex parte Young, the District Court described how it would proceed. First, because “there is no precedent on all fours for how the factors should be applied where excerpts of copyrighted works are copied by a nonprofit college or university for a nonprofit educational purpose,” the District Court would determine how the fair use factors should be applied in this case, and whether any other factors merit consideration. Id. at 1210. Then, in order to assess the efficacy of GSU’s copyright policy in complying with the requirements of the law, the District Court would assess each of the seventy-four claimed instances of infringement individually and “compare the outqome of this process to the outcomes that were achieved under the [fair use] checklists prescribed under the 2009 Copyright Policy.” Id. at 1211. First, the District Court made several findings of fact. Id. at 1211-21. In addition to’ findings — described above — regarding GSU’s copyright policy, Plaintiffs’ operations, and CCC’s services for licensing of excerpts of copyrighted works, the District Court made detailed findings regarding the market for excerpts of Plaintiffs’ works, based largely on the parties’ stipulations. With regard to CCC’s APS and ECCS programs, the District Court noted that publishers determine the fee for licensing excerpts of their materials, which for academic users is currently between ten and twenty-five cents per page. Id. at 1215. Cambridge stipulated that it charges eleven cents per page for APS and fifteen cents per page for ECCS, Sage stipulated that it charges fourteen cents per page (unspecified whether for permissions via APS, ECCS, or both), and Oxford stipulated that it charges twelve cents per page (unspecified whether for APS, ECCS, or both). Id. CCC charges a $3.50 service charge per order, and keeps 15 percent of the permission fee. Id. All three Plaintiffs have in-house permissions departments, but 90 percent of Oxford’s permissions income and 95 percent of Cambridge’s comes from CCC. Id. Although it did not note a percentage, the District Court found that “many though not all of Sage’s works at issue in this case generated permissions revenue from CCC during the period from July 1, 2004 to December 1, 2010.” Id. at 1214. The District Court found that “Plaintiffs earn considerable annual rights and permissions income through CCC. CCC made rights and permissions payments to Cambridge, Oxford, and Sage totaling $4,722,686.24 in FY 2009 and $5,165,445.10 in FY 2010,” amounting to an average of $1,574,228.74 per-Plaintiff in FY 2009. Id. at 1216 (footnote omitted). However, these totals involve payments through services which have “no demonstrated relevance to this case.” Id. Considering only payments for permissions under the academic permissions services — the APS, ECCS, and Academic Annual Copyright License programs — in FY 2009 Cambridge earned $404,494.90, Oxford earned $480,622.47, and Sage earned $352,759.84. Id. APS income, which “is dominated by payments for printed coursepacks,” accounted for the majority of these totals. Id. Thus, in FY 2009, through ECCS — CCC’s academic permissions service for individual licensing of digital copies of excerpts — Cambridge earned $81,671.35, Oxford earned $70,485.81, and Sage earned $85,660.91. Id. The figures for FY 2010 are similar. Id. The District Court calculated the percentage of Plaintiffs’ total revenues that these figures represent and determined that on average, APS and ECCS permissions represent .0024 (one-quarter of one percent) of net revenue in FY 2009 for each of the Plaintiffs. If the calculation is limited to ECCS income [for licensing of digital excerpts] (an average of $79,272 per Plaintiff), the percentage would be .00046 (five one-hundredths of one percent) of average net revenues. Even if all of the types of permissions payments reflected in Plaintiffs’ referenced exhibits are included, this income would represent an average of .0093 (nine-tenths of one percent) of net revenues per Plaintiff for FY 2009. Id. The District Court noted that Plaintiffs offered no testimony or evidence demonstrating that they lost book sales on account of Defendants’ actions, and accordingly found that no book sales were lost. Id. at 1217. The District Court also found that if GSU students had been required to pay permissions fees for the use of excerpts of Plaintiffs’ works in 2009, “there would have been some small overall increase in the cost of education.” Id. The District Court turned to its conclusions of law, first laying out the requirements for establishing a prima facie case of copyright infringement. To establish a prima facie case, Plaintiffs must establish that (1) they own valid copyrights in the allegedly infringed works and (2) that Defendants copied protected elements of the allegedly infringed works. Feist Publ’ns, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340, 361, 111 S.Ct. 1282, 1296, 113 L.Ed.2d 358 (1991). Plaintiffs must also establish that the copyright for the allegedly infringed work has been registered in the U.S. Copyright Office. 17 U.S.C. § 411(a). The District Court found that there were valid copyright registrations in all but one of the instances of alleged infringement. Cambridge Univ. Press, 863 F.Supp.2d at 1221. The District Court also found that Plaintiffs had established the element of copying protected material in all instances of alleged infringement. Id. With regard to the ownership prong, the District Court found that Plaintiffs are generally assignees of copyrights originally owned by authors, or hold exclusive licenses to publish the works in question pursuant to contracts with authors. Id. at 1222. Sage is deemed to be the author of some of its edited books by virtue of work-for-hire contracts. Id. However, the District Court found that several instances of alleged infringement involved works for which the Plaintiff-publisher offered no evidence of a contract with the contributing author. Id. The District Court held that, because such evidence is necessary in this case to establish ownership of the copyright to the works in question, in those instances lack of such evidence would be fatal to Plaintiffs’ prima facie case of infringement. Id. at 1223. Then, the District Court set forth the parameters of its fair use analysis. The District Court held that the first fair use factor, “the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes,” 17 U.S.C. § 107(1), “strongly favor[ed] Defendants” in all instances because “[t]his ease involves making copies of excerpts of copyrighted works for teaching students and for scholarship ... [and so] [t]he use is for strictly nonprofit educational purposes,” Cambridge Univ. Press, 863 F.Supp.2d at 1224-25. The District Court held that the second fair use factor, “the nature of the copyrighted work,” 17 U.S.C. § 107(2), favored Defendants in all instances because it found — after undertaking an individualized review of all of the works at issue for which it found that Plaintiffs had made a prima facie case of infringement — that “the books involved in this case are properly classified as informational in nature, within the spectrum of factual materials and hence favoring fair use.” Cambridge Univ. Press, 863 F.Supp.2d at 1226. The District Court held that the third fair use factor, “the amount and substan-tiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole,” 17 U.S.C. § 107(3), “favor[ed] either Plaintiffs or Defendants, depending on the amount taken from each book,” Cambridge Univ. Press, 863 F.Supp.2d at 1235. After hearing testimony from several GSU professors as to the reasoning behind their choice of a particular excerpt and how use of that excerpt furthered the professor’s goals for a particular class, the District Court found that all of the selections furthered the legitimate educational purposes of the courses in which they were used. Id. The District Court also found that some professors’ educational purposes were furthered by using whole chapters of books, because chapters typically contain a complete treatment of a topic. Id. at 1234 The District Court then determined that “[t]he right approach is to select a percentage of pages which reasonably limits copying and to couple that with a reasonable limit on the number of chapters which may be copied.” Id. at 1235. Accordingly, the District Court held that [w]here a book is not divided into chapters or contains fewer than ten chapters, unpaid copying of no more than 10 percent of the pages in the book is permissible under factor three.... Where a book contains ten or more chapters, the unpaid copying of up to but no more than one chapter (or its equivalent) will be permissible under fair use factor three.... The chapter or other excerpt must fill a demonstrated, legitimate purpose in the course curriculum and must be narrowly tailored to accomplish that purpose. Where the foregoing limitations are met factor three will favor fair use, i.e., will favor Defendants. Otherwise factor three will favor Plaintiffs. Id. at 1243. The District Court held that its factor three analysis would not be bound by the standards provided in the Classroom Guidelines. Id. at 1227-29. The District Court also chose to consider non-body material — such as dedications and introductions — as part of the work for purposes of calculating the work’s total page count, noting that such material constitutes copyrightable expression, and rejected Plaintiffs’ argument — raised late in the proceedings, that Defendants’ took 100 percent of a work when copying a whole chapter from a book of chapters by individual authors on individual subjects — on grounds of untimeliness and unfair surprise. Id. at 1230-31. With regard to the fourth fair use factor, “the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work,” 17 U.S.C. § 107(4), the District Court found that “Defendants’ use of small excerpts did not affect Plaintiffs’ actual or potential sales of books” because they do not substitute for the books, Cambridge Univ. Press, 863 F.Supp.2d at 1236. However, the District Court found that Defendants’ use of excerpts may be at the cost of Plaintiffs’ licensing revenues, and so may affect the market for licensing of excerpts. Id. at 1237. Thus, the District Court concluded that, in reviewing the individual instances of alleged infringement, it would analyze fair use factor four as follows: [Wjhere permissions are readily available from CCC or the publisher for a copy of a small excerpt of a copyrighted book, at a reasonable price, and in a convenient format (in this case, permissions for digital excerpts), and permissions are not paid, factor four weighs heavily in Plaintiffs’ favor. Factor four weighs in Defendants’ favor when such permissions are not readily available. Id. at 1243. However, “[bjecause Plaintiffs advocate that CCC has created an effective means through which Defendants could have obtained licensed copies of the excerpts in question here, the [District] Court place[d] the burden on Plaintiffs to show that CCC provided, in 2009, reasonably efficient access to the particular excerpts involved in this case.” Id. at 1237. Thus, in cases where no evidence showed whether digital permissions were readily available for excerpts of a particular work, the District Court found that the fourth fair use factor favored Defendants. The District Court took into account two additional considerations. First, the District Court noted that, based on testimony that “royalties are not an important incentive for academic writers,” and on a presumption that that academic authors publish primarily to enhance their professional reputation and contribute to academic knowledge, “[tjhere is no reason to believe that allowing unpaid, nonprofit academic use of small excerpts in controlled circumstances would diminish creation of academic works.” Id. at 1240. Second, the District Court found that “it is consistent with the principles of copyright to apply the fair use doctrine in a way that promotes the dissemination of knowledge, and not simply its creation.” Id. at 1241. The District Court noted that the evidence demonstrates that academic permissions income does not represent a significant portion of Plaintiffs’ overall revenue. Id. Thus, the District Court found that a slight diminution of Plaintiffs’ permissions income caused by the District Court’s findings of fair use would not appreciably harm Plaintiffs’ ability to publish scholarly works. Id. at 1243. On the other hand, the District Court found, “[mjaking small free excerpts available to students would further the spread of knowledge.” Id. at 1242. The District Court proceeded to undertake an individualized analysis of the seventy-four individual instances of alleged infringement, subject to the foregoing analysis. Id. at 1243-1363. The District Court held that Plaintiffs had established a prima facie case of copyright infringement in forty-eight instances. Id. at 1254-59; 1263; 1265-67; 1270-77; 1281; 1283-1296; 1299-1300; 1303-1310; 1316; 1322-24; 1329-30; 1333; 1339-51; 1355-62. For the other twenty-six instances, the District Court held that Plaintiffs had failed to establish a prima facie case either because Plaintiffs failed to demonstrate ownership of or (in one case) a valid registration of a copyright in the work in question, or because any infringement was de minimis in cases where the evidence showed that students either never accessed the excerpt or were required to buy the full book from which the excerpt in question had been copied. Id. at 1245-53; 1262; 1265; 1269; 1280; 1283; 1299; 1302; 1312-15; 1319-21; 1326-27; 1332; 1335-37; 1354. In weighing the fair use factors to assess each of the forty-eight instances of alleged infringement for which the District Court found that Plaintiffs had established a prima facie case, the District Court held that fair use applied whenever at least three of the four factors favored Defendants. Id. at 1255-58; 1264; 1266; 1271-76; 1282; 1284-97; 1300-01; 1304-11; 1317; 1323-25; 1329-31; 1334; 1339-52; 1356; 1361. Because the District Court found that factors one and two favored Defendants in all cases, the District Court essentially held that fair use applied each time a professor posted an excerpt that fell within the 10 percent-or-one-chapter limit on allowable copying the District Court had set (such that factor three favored Defendants) and each time there was no evidence that digital permissions were available for excerpts of the work in question (such that factor four favored Defendants). With regard to factor three, in thirty-five of the forty-eight claims of infringement, the District Court found that the copying was “decidedly small” because it fell within the 10 percent-or-one-chapter limit, and so factor three favored Defendants. Id. at 1254-58; 1266; 1270-72; 1276; 1281; 1283-88; 1291; 1295-97; 1300-01; 1304-08; 1317; 1325; 1329-30; 1334; 1339-45; 1348-50; 1356; 1361. In the other thirteen cases, the copying exceeded the 10 percent-or-one-chapter limit, and so the District Court held that factor three favored Plaintiffs. Id. at 1259; 1263; 1268; 1274; 1277; 1290; 1294; 1310; 1323; 1346; 1352; 1358; 1362. With regard to factor four, in seventeen of the forty-eight cases, the District Court found that the parties had presented no evidence regarding licensing availability, but because the District Court placed the burden on this issue on Plaintiffs, the District Court found that factor four favored Defendants. Id. at 1290-97; 1300-01; 1311; 1317; 1323-25; 1329-31; 1340-42; 1347; 1352. In the other thirty-one cases, the District Court found that Plaintiffs had made digital licensing available for excerpts of the work in question, and so, because there was a “ready market for licensed digital excerpts of [the] work in 2009,” factor four strongly favored Plaintiffs. Id. at 1255-60; 1263; 1266-68; 1271-78; 1281; 1284-88; 1304-09; 1334; 1339; 1344-45; 1348-50; 1356-62. When the District Court’s weighing of the factors resulted in a tie — factors one and two favored Defendants and factors three and four favored Plaintiffs — the District Court revisited its analysis of the factors, reviewing and reweighing the importance of the factors for the specific work in question. Id. at 1260; 1263-64; 1268-69; 1274; 1278; 1358-59; 1363. The District Court performed this reweighing for seven claims of infringement. Id. In two instances, the District Court held that fair use applied because Plaintiffs’ revenues from digital permissions were sufficiently small as a proportion of total revenues to render factor four of less importance. Id. at 1263-64; 1274. The District Court held that fair use did not apply in the remaining five instances. Id. at 1260; 1268-69; 1278; 1358-59; 1363. Thus, of the forty-eight instances of alleged infringement for which the District Court found that Plaintiffs had established a prima facie case, the District Court held that Defendants had infringed Plaintiffs’ copyrights in five instances, id. at 1260; 1269; 1278; 1358-59; 1363, and that the fair use defense applied in forty-three, id. at 1255-58; 1264; 1266; 1271-76; 1282; 1284-97; 1300-01; 1304-11; 1317; 1323-25; 1329-31; 1334; 1339-52; 1356; 1361. The District Court concluded that the 2009 Policy had caused the five instances of infringement. Id. at 1363. In reaching this conclusion, the District Court noted that the 2009 Policy did not limit copying to excerpts which were “decidedly small,” did not prohibit the copying of multiple chapters from the same book, and did not provide sufficient guidance in determining the effect the use of an excerpt may have on the market for or value of the copyrighted work. Id. In light of its findings, the District Court directed Plaintiffs to propose appropriate injunctive and declaratory relief. Id. at 1364. On May 31, 2012, Plaintiffs filed a second proposed injunction. This injunction would allow copying without permission in a manner that appears to be modelled on the fair use parameters set forth in District Court’s judgment, as described above. The proposed injunction would also require a reasonable investigation as to license availability, recordkeeping as to unlicensed copying and the related license availability investigations, periodic reports and certifications of compliance by Defendants to the District Court for a three-year period, and periodic granting of access to GSU’s electronic reserve systems to Plaintiffs’ representative over a three-year period. In their Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Request for Injunctive Relief, filed on June 15, 2012, Defendants stated that GSU had revised its 2009 Policy in accordance with the District Court’s May 11, 2012, order, and submitted into evidence revised versions of the 2009 Policy and Fair Use Checklist which purportedly “incorporate[d] the provisions of the Court’s Order that were not already present in the 2009 Copyright Policy.” Doc. 432, at 15; Doc. 432-1; Doc. 432-2. On August 10, 2012, the District Court issued an order entering declaratory and injunctive relief. The District Court enjoined Defendants “to maintain copyright policies for Georgia State University which are not inconsistent with the Court’s Order of May 11, 2012 and this Order.” Doc. 441, at 11. By way of declaratory relief, the District Court clarified the holding of its May 11, 2012, order in three detailed sections, titled as follows: A. The requirement that excerpts be “decidedly small” to tip factor three in Defendants’ favor applies to the aggregate of all excerpts from a book which are assigned during the term of the course. B. The holdings of this case do not address fair use of books intended solely for instruction of students enrolled in a class. C. Fair use protection is conditioned on strict reliance with measures calculated to protect copyrighted excerpts from unwarranted distribution. Id. at 2-9. Finally, because “Defendants prevailed on all but five of the [ninety-nine] copyright claims which were at issue when the trial began,” the District Court declared Defendants the prevailing party, and determined that it would exercise its discretion to award attorneys’ fees and costs to Defendants. Id. at 12-13. The District Court noted: When the trial began, Plaintiffs chose to pursue 99 claims out of 126. They then dropped 25 claims (and added one) during the trial. As to the remaining 75 claims, no prima facie case was proven in 26 instances. Digital permissions were unavailable in 33 instances. Neither digital nor hard copy permissions were available in 18 eases.... Plaintiffs’ failure to narrow their individual infringement claims significantly increased the cost of defending the suit. Id. at 14. On September 10, 2012, Plaintiffs appealed the District Court’s August 10 order entering declaratory and injunctive relief, seeking review of that order and all prior orders entered. Finally, on September 30, 2012, the District Court issued an order awarding to Defendants attorneys’ fees in the amount of $2,861,348.71 and costs in the amount of $85,746.39; and entered final judgment on its finding of infringement, its order granting declaratory and injunctive relief, and the award of fees and costs to Defendants. On October 2, 2012, Plaintiffs appealed the District Court’s September 30 order and final judgment, as well as all prior orders. On October 23, 2012, the District Court stayed execution of the portion of its judgment awarding Defendants attorneys’ fees and costs pending appeal. We consolidated Plaintiffs’ appeals. On appeal, Plaintiffs do not contest the District Court’s ruling that Plaintiffs failed to make out a prima facie case of infringement in twenty-six instances of copying. However, Plaintiffs argue that the District Court’s application of the fair use factors was legally flawed, and that the District Court consequently erred in finding that the fair use defense applied in forty-three of the forty-eight remaining instances of alleged infringement. Furthermore, Plaintiffs argue, because the District Court erred in identifying only five instances of infringement during the period it examined in 2009 and failed to apprehend that the 2009 Policy facilitates widespread, ongoing infringement, the injunction the District Court ordered is “unduly narrow.” ' Appellants’ Br. at 83. Thus, Plaintiffs contend, we must vacate the injunction “and remand with instructions to enter an appropriately comprehensive injunction]” along the lines of the injunctive relief Plaintiffs proposed below. Id. Plaintiffs also argue that the District Court erred in awarding attorney’s fees and costs to Defendants. Plaintiffs argue the District Court should have considered the claims of infringement as a whole instead of conducting a work-by-work analysis. Plaintiffs contend that the District Court’s “erroneous treatment of the individual claims [of infringement] ... produced a misleading tally of unsuccessful and successful claims which obscured the fact that the court held GSU’s [2009] [Policy unlawful for allowing excessive copying.” Id. at 84. The relevant measure of success is not, Plaintiffs contend, which party prevailed on the most individual claims, but rather whether or not the 2009 Policy caused copyright infringement. Because the District Court held that the 2009 Policy did cause copyright infringement, Plaintiffs claim that the District Court erred in designating Defendants as the prevailing party for the purpose of awarding fees and costs. Even if the District Court did not err in designating Defendants as the prevailing party, Plaintiffs further argue, the District Court abused its discretion in awarding fees and costs to Defendants because it made the award despite finding that Plaintiffs acted in “good faith in bringing ... suit” and that there was “no controlling authority governing fair use in a nonprofit educational setting.” See Doc. 441, at 14. Thus, Plaintiffs contend, we must reverse the District Court’s ruling as to Defendants’ entitlement to attorneys’ fees and costs. Finally, Plaintiffs argue that even if we allow the award of fees and costs to stand, we must reduce the award by $142,038.54, an amount awarded for fees paid to Defendants’ expert, Dr. Kenneth Crews, because, Plaintiffs’ argue, expert witness fees are not recoverable. Defendants argue that the District Court did not err in its fair use analysis. Thus, Defendants contend, in light of their successful defense in all but five of the alleged instances of infringement, the District Court’s injunction was proper. Defendants also argue that Plaintiffs’ more restrictive proposed injunction is unnecessary because GSU already revised its copyright policy in order to comply with the District Court’s order. Accordingly, Defendants contend, we must affirm the District Court’s order finding five instances of infringement and its entry of injunc-tive and declaratory relief. Defendants argue that the District Court properly undertook a work-by-work analysis of the individual claims of infringement and did not err in concluding that Defendants were the prevailing party because disposition of the individual instances of infringement represents the central issue in the case, upon which Plaintiffs did not prevail, having proved only five instances of infringement out of the ninety-nine Plaintiffs alleged at the beginning of trial. Because Plaintiffs refused to limit the scope of their claims, which significantly increased Defendants’ costs, Defendants argue that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in awarding fees and costs to Defendants. Defendants also argue that the District Court did not err in awarding expert witness fees to Defendants, because such fees are routinely awarded as incidental expenses incurred as part of attorneys’ work on litigation. Accordingly, Defendants contend, we must affirm the District Court’s award of attorneys’ fees and costs. Finally, Defendants argue — apparently in the alternative to Defendants’ argument that the District Court’s entry of injunctive and declaratory relief should be affirmed— that, because Plaintiffs cannot establish that the 2009 Policy violates any federal law, and because Defendants’ generalized responsibility for GSU policy is not sufficient to establish the necessary connection to GSU professors’ infringing actions, Defendants are immune from suit pursuant to the Eleventh Amendment and the Ex parte Young exception does not apply. Plaintiffs counter that because Defendants did not raise this argument on cross-appeal we should not consider it. II. “After a bench trial, we review [a] district court’s conclusions of law de novo and [a] district court’s factual findings for clear error.” Proudfoot Consulting Co. v. Gordon, 576 F.3d 1223, 1230 (11th Cir.2009). Fair use involves both questions of law and questions of fact. Harper Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enters., 471 U.S. 539, 560, 105 S.Ct. 2218, 2230, 85 L.Ed.2d 588 (1985). We review a district court’s decision to award injunctive relief for abuse of discretion. Klay v. United Healthgroup, Inc., 376 F.3d 1092, 1096 (11th Cir.2004); see also Pac. & S. Co. v. Duncan, 744 F.2d 1490, 1499 (11th Cir.1984) (reviewing for abuse of discretion the district court’s decision not to permanently enjoin a seller of videotapes containing material that the court had held infringed copyrights). We review de novo a district court’s determination as to whether a party is the “prevailing party” and hence eligible for an award of fees under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 505. Dionne v. Floormasters Enters., Inc., 667 F.3d 1199, 1203 (11th Cir.2012). We review a district court’s ultimate decision to award attorneys’ fees or costs for abuse of discretion. Id. III. A. As an initial matter, we must dispose of Defendants’ contention that they are immune from suit pursuant to the Eleventh Amendment. Because this argument is outside the scope of Plaintiffs’ brief and was not raised by Defendants on cross-appeal, we find that the argument is not properly raised. As we have previously explained, “a party who has not appealed may not bring an argument in opposition to a judgment or attack the judgment in any respect, or hitch a ride on his adversary’s notice of appeal to enlarge his rights under the judgment or diminish those of the opposing party.” Lawhorn v. Allen, 519 F.3d 1272, 1286 n. 20 (11th Cir.2008) (citations omitted) (quotation marks omitted). An argument that the District Court’s ruling must be vacated because suit is barred by Eleventh Amendment immunity is not excepted from this rule. Majette v. O’Connor, 811 F.2d 1416, 1419 n. 3 (11th Cir.1987). Accordingly, we decline to address Defendants’ Eleventh Amendment argument. B. The Copyright Clause of the U.S. Constitution provides that Congress shall have the power “[t]o promote the Progress of Science ... by securing for limited Times to Authors ... the exclusive Right to their respective Writings.... ” U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 8. As the Supreme Court has explained, “the economic philosophy behind the clause empowering Congress to grant copyrights is the conviction that encouragement of individual effort by personal gain is the best way to advance public welfare [by promoting the creation and dissemination of ideas] through the talents of authors.” Mazer v. Stein, 347 U.S. 201, 219, 74 S.Ct. 460, 471, 98 L.Ed. 630 (1954). Promoting the creation and dissemination of ideas has been the goal driving Anglo-American copyright law since the enactment of the first English copyright statute to explicitly vest copyright in a work’s creator, the Statute of Anne of 1710, which declared that it was “[a]n Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors ... during the Times therein mentioned.” 8 Ann., c. 19 (1710); see also Pierre N. Leval, Toward a Fair Use Standard, 103 Harv. L.Rev. 1105 (1990) (describing the Statute of Anne and its influence on early U.S. copyright law and the fair use doctrine). Thus, in our tradition, “copyright is not an inevitable, divine, or natural right that confers on authors the absolute ownership of their creations. It is designed rather to stimulate activity and progress in the arts for the intellectual enrichment of the public.” Cariou v. Prince, 714 F.3d 694, 705 (2d Cir.2013) (quoting Leval, supra, at 1107); see also Aiken, 422 U.S. at 156, 95 S.Ct. at 2044 (“The immediate effect of our copyright law is to secure a fair return for an ‘author’s’ creative labor. But the ultimate aim is, by this incentive, to stimulate artistic creativity for the general public good.”). The Copyright Act furthers this purpose by granting authors a bundle of “exclusive rights,” 17 U.S.C. § 106, “in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression,” id. § 102, for a limited time, id. §§ 302-305. While an author holds a copyright in his or her work, the author may control, for example, reproduction of the work or distribution of the work to the public. Id. § 106(1), (3). In part because copyright is not grounded in authors’ natural rights but rather meant to provide maximal public benefit, the Copyright Act’s grant to authors of a monopoly over the use of their works is limited in several important ways beyond its finite duration. Golan v. Holder, — U.S. - — , 132 S.Ct. 873, 890-91, 181 L.Ed.2d 835 (2012). For example, “[c]opyright cannot protect an idea, only the expression of that idea.” Suntrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Co., 268 F.3d 1257, 1263 (11th Cir.2001); see 17 U.S.C. § 102(b) (“In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work”). Thus, “copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work.” Feist, 499 U.S. at 349-50, 111 S.Ct. at 1290. The fair use doctrine also critically limits the scope of the monopoly granted to authors under the Copyright Act in order to promote the public benefit copyright is intended to achieve. See Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569, 575, 114 S.Ct. 1164, 1169, 127 L.Ed.2d 500 (1994) (“From the infancy of copyright protection, some opportunity for fair use of copyrighted materials has been thought necessary to fulfill copyright’s very purpose, ‘[t]o promote the Progress of Science-’” (quoting U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 8.)). In other words, fair use provides necessary “breathing space within the confines of copyright.” Id. at 579, 114 S.Ct. at 1171. By allowing for the limited use of copyrighted works without the permission of the copyright holder by members of the public in certain circumstances, fair use “permits [and requires] courts to avoid rigid application of the copyright statute when, on occasion, it would stifle the very creativity which that law is designed to foster.” Id. at 577, 114 S.Ct. at 1170 (alteration in original) (quoting Stewart v. Abend, 495 U.S. 207, 236, 110 S.Ct. 1750, 1767, 109 L.Ed.2d 184 (1990)). In a sense, the grant to an au