Google Books Copyright Case

In this article “Google Books Copyright Case”, we are going to delve into the legal battle that unfolded between Google and Author’s Guild(An association of authors that upholds author’s rights).The main point of conflict was whether the scanning of books by Google was copyright infringement or not.

Background:

1. In 2004, Google and leading research Universities from around the world made an agreement, to allow Google scan the books from the university libraries.

2. Google scanned over 12 million books.

3. Google uploaded the scanned books to its Search Database, where users could find these books.

4. For Public Domain Books, Google provided the entire book on the database to be searched and read by users.

5. For Copyright Books, Google provided snippets of books, which did not show the full books, not even an entire page.

Legal Dispute:

1. In 2005, Author’s Guild filed a lawsuit against Google claiming that Google’s scanning of books is a copyright infringement.

2. Google argued that the scanning of books was “fair use” under US Copyright Case.

3. Ned Rosenthal, who argued on behalf of Author’s Guild stated that Google’s efforts should be evaluated not by how users are using Google Books, but by how Google uses scanned books to gain competitive advantages over competition .

4. Rosenthal also stated that Google’s plans were a violation of author ‘s rights and infringement of copyright.

5. Ned Rosenthal also insisted copyright owners received a cut of any profits. He stated that Google snippets were harming authors because it brought potential customers away from Amazon to Google, when Amazon had licensed rights to scan books. Another argument put forward was that a diligent user could get the entire book by performing a long string of searches.

6. Daralyn Durie, attorney for Google argued that Google’s scanning of books was “fair use” under US Copyright Laws. She also stated that Google only displayed entire books on their database which were public domain. As for copyright books, Google only displayed Snippets which were not violative of copyrights . She argued snippets rather helped the author’s sale their books.

7. Durie also argued that it was highly unlikely for a person to perform a string of searches and get the entire book.

Decision:

The US Circuit Court Judge Denny Chin accepted Google’s arguments that it was indeed “fair use” to scan books and provide snippets of these books.

The Judge also stated that Google’s Work was transformative and it helped the society as a whole, which included both authors and users.

Hence Google defeated Author’s Guild in this lawsuit.

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For further details on Google Books Case, visit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc.