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Court Finds In Favor of Libraries In Google Books Affair
First time accepted submitter cpt kangarooski writes "While it's not a final victory in the long-running Google Books matter, the related case by the Authors' Guild against the universities working with Google in the digitization project has produced a ruling that their book scanning is a fair use. You can read the opinion here. This bodes well for Google's case, although note that this wasn't directly about them."
here (but if you want to decipher a 23 page court opinion instead, feel free...)
Simply because the word "library" doesn't appear doesn't mean it isn't about them. Hathicourt (i.e. the defendant) is an online digital library which is the result of a collaborative of dozens of research libraries, such as the Universities of Michigan, California, Washington, et. alia., universities often having the biggest and best libraries in existence (and the most interested in preserving and accessing them).
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
You are mixing your metaphors. The sayings are "If it walks like a duck. . ." and "call a spade a spade".
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Well having worked in a couple of libraries, after fines clear no records are kept. I can tell you a total of books you've checked out but there is no way to see what books they were. Yeah they an change this but as of today, nothing is there.
For all intensive porpoises the metaphor was the pick of the kitten kaboodle, a grade A choice cut of chicken.
Quote:
"Plaintiffs, consisting of individuals and associational organizations, assert claims for copyright infringement for the alleged unauthorized reproduction and distribution of books owned by the Universities"
If they're going to phrase their assertion like that, surely the Doctrine of First Sale applies?
Also:
"Plaintiffs’ motion for judgment on thepleadings insofar as it seeks a ruling that fair use and other defenses are unavailable to theDefendants as a matter of law is DENIED."
DOES NOT say "Judgment for the Respondents insofar as their use of the material of which hard copy they own (as freely admitted in the VERY FIRST PARAGRAPH) constitutes "Fair Use".
I will buy the argument that the Plaintiffs made no *specific claims*, in that they do not seem to have specified titles or specific copyright ownership. Any *sane* Judge would dismiss on those grounds alone.
I will also accept: The Copyright Act’s standing clause explicitly limits who may enforce copyright claims: “the legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright is entitled . . . to institute an action for anyinfringement of that particular right committed while he or she is the owner of it.” 17 U.S.C. 501(b). By that same argument I will not negotiate with MPAA/RIAA/BPI or any associative umbrella. I will deal only with the *actual copyright holder*. Anyone else claiming to be representing a copyright holder can go fuck himself.
ABKO Music Inc. v. Harrisongs Music, Ltd., 944 F.2d 971, 980 (2d Cir. 1991) (“[T]he Copyright Act does not permit copyright holders to choose third parties to bring suits on their behalf.” is a precedent decision which prevents such idiocy as you see here.
As the Collection is made as a digital Library (by the very title of the project), as far as I can see it is protected under Section 108 as a Library, with the protections afforded a dead tree repository. A Section 108 defense is NOT an exclusion of Section 107 (Fair Use) as it specifically states that it is an *additional protection of rights for libraries*.
I can see a Chaffee Amendment in there as well. Oh, look, there it is. Foot of Page 15. Google it.
At the bottom of the Judgment, the very last page, the decision is basically: the Plaintiffs have no legal standing to make the claim they did since they are not copyright holders. The seven dockets were closed and the case dismissed. This does NOT prevent the actual copyright holders filing on their own, even to repeat verbatim, the entire bundle. There *may* be some legal standing under hte Berne Convention, but that is an argument for another day, another courtroom.
This battle is far from over.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Page 2, under the section titled Background (emphasis added, smart quotes dumbed down):
Defendants have entered into agreements with Google, Inc. ("Google"), that allow Google to create digital copies of works in the Universities' libraries in exchange for which Google provides digital copies to Defendants...
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Universities' book repositories=libraries.
Or did you think they kept them in cabinets in each lecture hall?
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Chained to the lecterns.
(And if anyone is interested in the history of book storage technology, The Book on the Bookshelf is an excellent read on the subject)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Nope, no such finding there. The dockets were dismissed on the grounds that the Associative were not themselves holders of the copyrights (which they did not specify), which is correct under the Copyright Act.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Well, "Spade" can mean a couple three things, and if we are going to label the term "Racist", then every deck of cards, fixed female dogs/cats and a bunch of shovels are going to have to have alternate word choices.
I'm sick of people claiming "racist overtones" where there are none. It really diminishes us all. And it is clear that people are not just looking for racism under every rock, they are finding it, even if it isn't there.
What next, we stop calling space anomalies "black holes" because ... it MIGHT be racist? Be Proud and stop letting idiots define you.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Welcome to Slashdot, where people correct others for inane crap.
The person correcting most likely figured, as I would, that the guy he was correcting probably spoke English as a second language, and that he was doing him a favor (What was the movie where the foreigner was saying "Piece of pie" and "easy as cake"?). Personally, if I make an ignorant goof, I expect to be corrected, and welcome the correction.
Welcome to slashdot, where people who like to learn come to discuss stuff.
Free Martian Whores!
Not to mention that everything is funnier when there's a duck involved.
The very last paragraph of TFA says "their participation in the MDP and the present application of the HDL are protected under fair use".
I read it as "plaintiff has no legal standing, and even if they did, the actions of the defendant are well within their rights".
But, in all honesty, my eyes glaze over when reading legal documents, and I certainly aint no lawyer. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.