Slashdot Mirror
Google Books Case Dismissed On Fair Use Grounds
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a case of major importance, the long simmering battle between the Authors Guild and Google has reached its climax, with the court granting Google's motion for summary judgment, dismissing the case, on fair use grounds. In his 30-page decision (PDF), Judge Denny Chin — who has been a District Court Judge throughout most of the life of the case but is now a Circuit Court Judge — reasoned that, although Google's own motive for its "Library Project" (which scans books from libraries without the copyright owners' permission and makes the material publicly available for search), is commercial profit, the project itself serves significant educational purposes, and actually enhances, rather than detracts from, the value of the works, since it helps promote sales of the works. Judge Chin also felt that it was impossible to use Google's scanned material, either for making full copies, or for reading the books, so that it did not compete with the books themselves."
Google spent a lot of money to help us find books. I really don't mind seeing ads down the side while I search. They are not preventing anyone else from spending lots of money to do the same thing.
If google can legally copy books (even when profit is involved) then why can't I do the same?
Wouldn't I get hammered with copyright infringement problems if I scanned in books I did not author myself?
In my view, Google Books provides significant public benefits. It advances the progress of the arts and sciences, while maintaining respectful consideration for the rights of authors and other creative individuals, and without adversely impacting the rights of copyright holders. It has become an invaluable research tool that permits students, teachers, librarians, and others to more efficiently identify and locate books. It has given scholars the ability, for the first time, to conduct full-text searches of tens of millions of books. It preserves books, in particular out-of-print and old books that have been forgotten in the bowels of libraries, and it gives them new life. It facilitates access to books for print disabled and remote or underserved populations. It generates new audiences and creates new sources of income for authors and publishers. Indeed, all society benefits.
Depending on how Chin's decision stands up on the inevitable appeal, this paragraph has probably given us some very useful & explicit design considerations to incorporate in projects likely to face similar claims of copyright violation.
One of the four factors used in the copyright statute to determine whether or not a use is fair use is: "The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole"
The idea here is to protect stuff like a critic quoting a bits of a book/movie in their discussion of a piece without violating the copyright of that book/movie. If it weren't for the 'snippet' view that prevents easy access to 100% of each scanned book, that factor would have weighed against google here, not for them. While one can only speculate whether that would have been enough to change the outcome, it is a certainty --the judge explicitly describes how, if you're interested-- that google's presentation of less than 100% of the scanned works helped secure this decision.
Suddenoutbreakofcommonsense
Thatswhatappealscourtsarefor
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
> I don't mind people who did both processes getting a fair return but we need to decide what a fair return is.
It's 9.8%. Over the long term, they'll average 9.8% per year and there's nothing we can do to change that.
Suppose for a moment that there was a very high return. Let's say 50%.
Microsoft and their Bing divison, along with Amazon and others would be watching that and thinking:
We have $50 million dollars to spend on our next project.
We can either spend that on developing a game console, with an expected return of 2%, or
on digitizing books, with a return of 50%.
Fire up the digitizer!
People generally invest in the type of projects that are getting the best returns. So due to the 50% return, you'd have Google, Microsoft, and Amazon all offering different versions of the service. Maybe Microsoft would have no ads, but it would only work in IE11 on Windows 8.1.
Amazon's would be similar to Google, but with fewer, more obtrusive ads for full books that float over the digital pages.
With two competitors, Google's return would decrease. Specifically, new entrants keep coming in with different (better, cheaper, etc.) versions as long as the return is higher than other projects. It turns out that "other projects" return 9.8%, on average. So anything with a risk-adjusted return higher than 9.8% draws competitors.
If money goes IN to lines of business where it'll make more than 9.8%, where does it come FROM? From shutting down (or foregoing) operations that make less, of course. Any business with a risk-adjusted return less than 9.8% has some providers leave the market for greener pastures.
With the competitors close, their market share goes to the remaining competitors, so the remaining people get increased returns. Specifically, competitors keep leaving and the return keeps increasing until the return is as good as other options - about 9.8%.
So that's what you end up with - in the long term, any industry in the US has a risk-adjusted return of about 9.8%. Some, like oil or farming, are subject to high volatility - good years and bad years. Exxon for example is affected by oil prices, so it goes up and down. Exxon averaged 11.62% over the last 10 years, 7.86% over the last 15 years - everything swings up and down around that 9.8% mark.
"50 Shades of Red White and Blue"? Or was it that Loyalist best-seller "Deep Throne"?
Even if you think that Google is Damien's evil brother, this is the right damn decision.
Agreed, and reading from the full text of the decision, its hard to see what the Authors Guild is all about.
You can't get the full text of a copyrighted work from google, no matter how hard you try. You get
snippets, not complete pages, and not snippets from all the pages.
Further, most of the Author's guild whining was all about the fact that Google is a for profit company.
Yet the decision clearly considers this:
Here, Google does not sell the scans it has
made of books for Google Books; it does not sell the snippets
that it displays; and it does not run ads on the About the Book
pages that contain snippets. It does not engage in the direct
commercialization of copyrighted works.
Google does, of course, benefit commercially in the sense that
users are drawn to the Google websites by the ability to search
Google Books. While this is a consideration to be acknowledged
in weighing all the factors, even assuming Google's principal
motivation is profit, the fact is that Google Books serves
several important educational purposes.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Just go read the Judges ruling.
You clearly don't have a clue about how the Google books search works. You are talking nonsense.
Nobody said google was only USING snippets. Google will only GIVE YOU snippets.
Just like the librarian that won't let you copy a whole book but will let you copy a coupe pages.
Google doesn't SELL these snippets. There is no advertising on the pages that contain Snippets.
There are unpaid links to stores that sell the book you are looking at. And some libraries that are
known to have a copy.
READ WHAT THE JUDGE SAID FOR CHRISTS SAKE.
Its a court ruling. Anyone who wants to copy google's model, in whole or in part can point to that ruling in court.
Unless or until it is overturned, it is the law of the land.
Please, I beg you, go read the ruling. You are making an idiot of yourself on the internet.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
What they're "about" is, google has lots of Beeeeeellions of dollars laying around, and since they already did this, might as well make a grab at some of their cash. Regardless of if google's actions even harm them.
In the end, their greed cost them a bunch of legal expenses, whereas the moral high ground would have permitted them instead to focus on the free promotional value.