Before joining WCL, Butler was the Director of Public Policy Initiatives at the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), an association of 125 academic and research libraries in North America. From September 2009 to July 2013 he worked on a host of issues ranging from fair use to network neutrality to the PATRIOT Act. Working primarily on copyright issues, Butler prepared analysis and commentary on the Google Books Settlement, the Georgia State University e-reserves case, the HathiTrust, orphan works, and a wide range of litigation and legislation. He is a co-facilitator, with Peter Jaszi and Patricia Aufderheide, of the ARL Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries, released in January 2012. Butler still collaborates with ARL in support of library issues.
Before coming to ARL, Butler was an associate in the Media and Information Technologies practice group at the Washington, D.C., law firm Dow Lohnes PLLC, where he worked on copyright issues, trademark prosecution, and corporate transactions involving intellectual property. He graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law where he was an editor at the Journal of Law and Politics, obtained an M.A. in philosophy from the University of Texas, and did his undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia.
