BREAKING NEWS: Google Books Library Project is FAIR USE

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From The IPKat: BREAKING NEWS: Google Books Library Project is FAIR USE

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It was just a bit more than a year ago
that Google and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) concluded a
settlement agreement (here)
that put an end to copyright infringement
proceedings first brought against Google in 2005 by five AAP member publishers
(McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education, Penguin Group USA, John Wiley & Sons, and
Simon & Schuster) over its Google Books
Library Project. 

However,
the settlement achieved with AAP did not affect the (still) ongoing litigation between the
Authors Guild and Google.

As reported by the IPKat,
in late 2012 Google submitted a brief to the US Second Circuit Court
of Appeals, in which it basically asked the Court to reject Judge
Denny Chin’s ruling in
May 2012 that let the Authors Guild sue Google on behalf of all authors whose
books were scanned without permission. 

In July last the Second Circuit delivered its decision, substantially
agreeing with Google and holding Judge
Chin’s class certification as "premature in the absence of a
determination by the District Court [ie Judge
Chin] of the merits of Google’s
‘fair use’ defense". 

Hence, the Second Circuit decided to remand the cause to the District Court for
consideration of the fair use issues.

As reported by Reuters a few minutes ago, today Judge Chin
accepted Google’s argument that that its scanning of
more than 20 million books for an electronic database, and making
"snippets" of text available for online searches, constituted fair
use. "In my view, Google Books provide significant public benefits",
said Judge Chin.
Today’s ruling
is BIG news for anyone interested in copyright. This Kat promises to read
the decision as soon as possible and summarise the main points on this blog.
So: stay tuned! 


UPDATE: The summary judgment order is now available here.

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