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Court Rules Book Scanning Is Fair Use, Suggesting Google Books Victory

Posted by samzenpus on from the keep-on-scanning dept.

concealment writes "A judge has ruled that the libraries who have provided Google with their books to scan are protected by copyright's fair use doctrine. While the decision doesn't guarantee that Google will win—that's still to be decided in a separate lawsuit—the reasoning of this week's decision bodes well for Google's case. Most of the books Google scans for its book program come from libraries. After Google scans each book, it provides a digital image and a text version of the book to the library that owns the original. The libraries then contribute the digital files to a repository called the Hathitrust Digital Library, which uses them for three purposes: preservation, a full-text search engine, and electronic access for disabled patrons who cannot read the print copies of the books."

3 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. I really don't know who to root for here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I haven't been able to make up my mind on this one.

    On one hand, it's deplorable that Google isn't paying tribute to authors.

    On the other hand, they're using books from libraries, books intended to be shared.

    I think Google just accidentally broke the system. Perhaps it was not Google, but the digital age itself, that did the actual breaking.

    Either way, a hole has been found in current fair use theory / ways libraries operate. Now it's either going to get plugged or become a gaping chasm.

    It's a tough nut to crack.

    1. Re:I really don't know who to root for here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      it's deplorable that Google isn't paying tribute to authors

      What? By most accounts (by actual authors), being in the DB gets your books sold. Only the BS Authors Guild thinks this is a problem.

      The interesting thing is that there's a massive, consistent and complete, collaborative digital archive of library print books and journals somewhere. If an Anon group wanted to do something really crazy, they'd pilfer that massive cache and release it unto the world.

    2. Re:I really don't know who to root for here. by RocketRabbit · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "On one hand, it's deplorable that Google isn't paying tribute to authors."

      Most of them are dead, and their works are in the public domain. For those that aren't you just get a tiny snippet view which encourages you to buy the very expensive out of print books, or buy the books from a publisher.

      This is all about Google's ability to sell books, and the publishers don't like that. They sell books because you can search and bam, there's the book you need. No need to get it from a publisher.

      Authors win here too, especially ones who will not typically be joined with a publisher.