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Appeals Court Finds Scanning To Be Fair Use

Posted by timothy on from the only-reading-it-for-the-articles dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer (912032) writes In Authors Guild v Hathitrust, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has found that scanning whole books and making them searchable for research use is a fair use. In reaching its conclusion, the 3-judge panel reasoned, in its 34-page opinion (PDF), that the creation of a searchable, full text database is a "quintessentially transformative use", that it was "reasonably necessary" to make use of the entire works, that maintaining four copies of the database was reasonably necessary as well, and that the research library did not impair the market for the originals. Needless to say, this ruling augurs well for Google in Authors Guild v. Google, which likewise involves full text scanning of whole books for research.

34 comments

  1. Hah! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Funny

    I tried to scan the court opinion into my research database but my OCR full-text indexer couldn't even understand the first three lines! Must be DRM'ed or something.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
    1. Re:Hah! by Mister+Liberty · · Score: 2

      You must be using one of the overrated Adobe products.
      Abbyy Finereader!

    2. Re:Hah! by Mister+Liberty · · Score: 1

      Hi Casper!

    3. Re:Hah! by thunderclap · · Score: 1

      So your diss suggests you are homophobic. Please next time reveal yourself so your wisdom can be applied to yourself as well.

  2. Key Point Missing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The summary misses a key point. Yes they scan and store the entire book, but they are _NOT_ making the entire book available to everyone. For the most part they are just making it searchable.

    1. Re:Key Point Missing by NewYorkCountryLawyer · · Score: 2

      The summary misses a key point. Yes they scan and store the entire book, but they are _NOT_ making the entire book available to everyone. For the most part they are just making it searchable.

      Agreed that it's not in the summary, but as you correctly note, it's just a "summary". Anyone who reads the underlying blog post will read this among the facts on which the court based its opinion: "The public was allowed to search by keyword. The search results showed only the page numbers for the search term and the number of times it appeared; none of the text was visible."

      So those readers who RTFA will be in the know.

      --
      Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
    2. Re:Key Point Missing by radarskiy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "So what is the point of scanning and making the info from the scan available if they don't reveal anything from the text?"

      The same point behind card catalogs at the library, or Google: so that you can find sources that have the kind of information you are looking for instead of trying to buy all of the books everywhere on the off chance that any one might have what you are looking for.

    3. Re: Key Point Missing by LocalH · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The other main reason would be to prepare the work for public release before it's eventual copyright lapse. That's assuming that Google is still around in 500 years (at least the way copyright extensions are handled it'll likely be at least that long).

      --
      FC Closer
    4. Re:Key Point Missing by thunderclap · · Score: 1

      I think you lost your point somewhere. So are you upset about all this or not. Me, I am fully in support of OCR getting a LOT more powerful, and Captcha's are going to become useless. I am also in support of scanning and making the info from the scan available like searching Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and it reveals that, "yes, the words OFF WITH HER HEAD" appear, and appear on page 78. However, I seriously doubt we will end up with an entire book of those stupid wavy words and superimposed squiggles because Captcha's are going to become useless. (yes I used your terms in my comment because you had valid points you just rambled too much.

  3. Needless to say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It doesnt bode well for Google as Google are not using scanning for research, they are a publicly listed corporation scanning books to profit from showing the public books and adverts and selling the resulting data to anyone who will pay them with the authors getting 0 compensation.

    1. Re:Needless to say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pretty much this. It would require a lot of Google lobbyists in Washington to force the argument that Google is entitled to fair use exceptions "for research purposes". Oh wait...

    2. Re:Needless to say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It doesnt bode well for Google as Google are not using scanning for research, they are a publicly listed corporation scanning books to profit from showing the public books and adverts and selling the resulting data to anyone who will pay them with the authors getting 0 compensation.

      You even THINK about my book and I better be getting paid!

    3. Re:Needless to say by sillybilly · · Score: 1

      They are not showing the whole book, but a teaser, limited amount of text or pages. kind of like showing you a movie trailer is not like showing you the entire movie. If anything Google is engaged in free advertising to those who are bound to profit from new copy sales. And then again there are those who just get by on the promotional material, without making a full purchase. A lot pf porn picture samples are like that, it says on them they are a sample, and real images have superhigh resolutions. When was it the last time you paid for sex or sex related items? I bought a few ancient copies of Penthouse like two months ago off ebay because of the political messages and free speech abuses they contain on the front page, besides probably some good porn inside too, but I have yet to open and read them, for well over a month now, including other packages too of other kind of stuff. I left good feedback on ehaby.Maybe some day I'll feel like it and fancy opening them... also Naked News seems to be a dencent news program sometimes, and I'd not pay for the sexual part, and it may be difficult to enforce payments of sexual services or goods, because prostitution is illegal in a lot of places.

    4. Re:Needless to say by plover · · Score: 4, Funny

      ... because prostitution is illegal in a lot of places.

      Apparently it's illegal in the same places where carriage returns, line feeds, paragraphs, and coming to a logical conclusion are illegal, too.

      --
      John
    5. Re:Needless to say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fair use actually says nothing about profit motive or research.

    6. Re:Needless to say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He came to the conclusion that porn. That's always a logical conclusion.

    7. Re:Needless to say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      not entirely true, (the public) institutions which has offered up their books for scanning do get free digital copies out of it as well, ensuring that the works stays available to the public.

    8. Re:Needless to say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Prostitution is also legal _many_ places in the world, and more following suit.
      It's mostly old conservatives and hardcore feminists who don't understand it, who is against it...

    9. Re:Needless to say by sillybilly · · Score: 1

      I was just thinking about this topic driving home today. How a local discount store used to carry Dorco Pace 4 shavers, and I've used them for like the past 5 years, and they last like 6 months a package of four at least, for something that used to be a lot cheaper than the standard Gillette or Schick or Bic stuff, but now they've switched to Dorco Pace 6, which is more expensive, and it sucks! I mean I used it but it does not go at it strong enough, you have to scrape your face a few times with the Pace 6 compared to the Pace 4 that used to like dig in, and the blades in it would last friggin forever, for months, with shaving 5 mornings a week. I'd go like a whole friggin year on a $3.xx-4.xx pack of 3 or 4, I bought the packs like 8 or 10 times my entire life and they've taken me through the last few years. So I go online, and go to these frugal advice webpages, and they talk about Dollar a Day shaving deals, how you can save a lot of money on it, or you can upgrade to Harry's razors for better quality. A whole friggin dollar a day for shaving? Are they out of their minds? If it comes with a blowjob, then yeah, I'd pay a dollar a day for a shaving deal, but I'd be paying for the shaving and get the blowjob part for free.

      So I was thinking how come when sex is bundled I'd be willing to pay more, but I would not be willing to pay directly for sex. See here is the ultimate dilemma, because once you start paying for sex, it degrades sex, it's not two free people interacting out of their free interest and free enjoyment of each other, (and in this case free as in beer translates into free as in freedom), and mutual respect, it's a most private personal thing degraded to an I'm doing this out of necessity not because I'm enjoying it. Like somebody held a gun to my head and told me to get naked, but instead it's like starvation is on the line, etc. So even in porn about the most important thing is that the person doing it be happy. If they look like they feel exploited, ashamed, unhappy in any way it's crappy porn. The best porn is watching somebody have an orgasm, and you have mirror neurons, and you can feel what they feel, so to speak, but when they are faking it, and it's obvious, and they are doing it for the money, that's horrible porn. It takes the authenticity of freedom, happiness, and mirror neuron shit out of it, because you were gonna get off on someone else getting off, but when they fake it that's like being betrayed. So the only porn or even prostitution, worth anything, is one where people like what they are doing and would be willing to do it even for free, or even pay to do it themselves, not because they do it for the money. And then giving them money on top of it, that makes them extra happy, so this is where it all gets really complicated. It's really hard to ask from real life prostitutes to enjoy what they are doing and do it for free or even pay for it themselves, instead of getting paid for it, in most cases real life prostitution is about desperation and needing to make an income or feed a family, and those are very inhumane things, so we erect laws against them, so nobody on welfare could be told, hey, why don't you go work the corner or suck some old fetid guy off and make a living that way, because she can say "it's against the law." It's a very private and personal thing that people shouldn't be forced to do no matter what the circumstances, even life and death circumstances. If someone tells me you either gonna sweep or mop this floor or you'll starve I have absolutely no objections against that, I'll mop the floor, but if they say here's a rich 80 year old man, and he wants to get a blow job for money, so you can buy food on it, and she'll be like no, that's not a viable option to make a living, for her. For her is what matters, because if she likes to do that stuff, she can, just because it's against the law it happens anyway, but she can cite the law to escape it, and have a personal choice. There are a whole lot of 80 year old men with some money saved up from their meager social s

    10. Re:Needless to say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is high-fucking-quality shit. If I had a userid, I'd mod you up.

    11. Re:Needless to say by sillybilly · · Score: 1

      By the way http://biblehub.com/gwt/ezekie... Ezekiel 23 is about prostitution. Good read.

  4. Appeals Court Finds Scanning To Be Fair Use by MindPrison · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yeah, for a split second there...I read it as:

    Court finds port scanning to be fair.

    --
    What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
    1. Re:Appeals Court Finds Scanning To Be Fair Use by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Yeah, for a split second there...I read it as: Court finds port scanning to be fair.

      Yes slashdot has a long tradition of failing to use basic literacy and then feeling an overwhelming urge to share this fact with the group.

    2. Re:Appeals Court Finds Scanning To Be Fair Use by sonamchauhan · · Score: 1

      Me too! :D Ignore the cowards.

  5. Transformative by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That, indeed, is the key.The transformation of the book is what makes it fair use.

  6. Commercialisation is 2 parts of the 4-part test by raymorris · · Score: 2

    Section 107 sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair use:

    The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes

    The nature of the copyrighted work

    The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole

    The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

    1 and 4 have to do with profit. #1 asks "is the person copying doing so for profit?" #4 asks "how does that effect the profits due the author or their assigns?"

  7. Knowledge by Ultracrepidarian · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "The field of knowledge is the common property of mankind."
    --- Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Henry Dearborn, 1807)

  8. What good is a scanned book if you can't get it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    But what good is a scanned book if it's available but you can't actually access it? Almost everything since 1930 is under copyright, and we're legally denied access to this wealth of information, including works under copyright but orphaned. Scanning books, digitizing them, making them searchable -- and then what? If you can't get the book, what good is it? Almost all books before digital typesetting are available online only in bad-photocopy scanned PDFs, not even full text.

    A sane society would strip the copyright from any book that is not currently available digitally, if the copyright holder (supposing the copyright holder can even be found) has no plans to make it available digitally in the next year, and revert it to the public domain. Then Google - and anyone else - could do whatever they wanted with the text.

  9. This bodes poorly for WotC by jsepeta · · Score: 1

    Since there's a ton of scanned, searchable PDF D&D books, that did NOT come from the copyright-holder, I bet WotC is pissed about this result.

    --
    Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
  10. Re:What good is a scanned book if you can't get it by thunderclap · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But what good is a scanned book if it's available but you can't actually access it? Almost everything since 1930 is under copyright, and we're legally denied access to this wealth of information, including works under copyright but orphaned. Scanning books, digitizing them, making them searchable -- and then what? If you can't get the book, what good is it? Almost all books before digital typesetting are available online only in bad-photocopy scanned PDFs, not even full text.

    A sane society would strip the copyright from any book that is not currently available digitally, if the copyright holder (supposing the copyright holder can even be found) has no plans to make it available digitally in the next year, and revert it to the public domain. Then Google - and anyone else - could do whatever they wanted with the text.

    A sane society would have a 14 yr copyright, a president and congress who actually listen to the masses and only serve 4 or six yrs, a Bruce jenner who never married Kris Kardashian because told him it would be his worst mistake ever, a childless Pattie Mallette, a RIAA that served its artists giving them 80% of the money an album earned and didn't attack the people who shared it, muslims and jews who didn't hate each other, women, gays and want to explode themselves in crowded places, a US that didnt spill foreign blood someone in the world every decade for the last 120 yrs and a Microsoft who actually listens and didnt shove metro into 8 or kill xp because it wants too. But back to the topic. No, stripping the copyright from any book that is not currently available digitally, if the copyright holder (supposing the copyright holder can even be found) has no plans to make it available digitally in the next year, and revert it to the public domain would deprive certain authors (example Harlan Ellison and Ursula K. Le Guin ). You want an actual example of this? http://wellpreparedmind.wordpr... its happened in france. Damn those they couldn't find. Me, I am a writer. I want copyright fixed but I don't want my choice taken away either. However, I am in support of this scanning. As for the D&D, well they deserved to be screwed.

  11. Vindicated by alexo · · Score: 1

    Scanners do not live in vain!