US appeals court says Google can keep scanning books
A judge in the US has decided that Google exercises ‘fair use’ with its books projects. Google digitizes the world’s books by scanning them and making them searchable. The Authors Guild, along with writers and publishers, claims that with this, the company threatens their earning potential.The Google Books Library project and the Google Books program aim to scan the entire collection of big research libraries. A lot of students and scholars world wide use it to find out what books they need for their scientific work. The reason for the judge to rule in favor of Google is the fact that the company does not place the whole book text online, but just snippets of it. The court said: “The purpose of the copying is highly transformative, the public display of text is limited, and the revelations do not provide a significant market substitute for the protected aspects of the originals.”
Google has released a statement, saying: “We’re pleased the court has confirmed that the project is fair use, acting like a card catalogue for the digital age.” The Authors Guild said it will take the case to the US supreme court.
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