Google Notches Another Legal Victory in Book Scanning Case

Google already scanned more than 20 million of books. It only wants to provide a short excerpt of the book and a link where people can buy it or borrow from a library.

The years-old suit was filed on behalf of Jim Bouton, the author of Ball Four, Betty Miles, the author of Trouble with Thirteen, and Joseph Goulden, the author of The Superlawyer.

The Authors Guild, a writers’ organization, argued the Google project is “quintessentially commercial in nature” and meant to advance the company’s business interests.

“But Google argued that the effort would actually boost book sales by making it easier for readers to find works, while introducing them to books they might not otherwise have seen”.

Circuit Judge Denny Chin oversaw the case at the lower court level.

The appeals court says Google’s profit motivation does not in these circumstances justify denial of what is a fair use of the books’ content.

The Authors’ Guild sued Google, saying that serving up search results from scanned books infringes on publishers’ copyrights, even though the search giant shows only restricted snippets of the work.

In 2013, Google scored a similar victory with a ruling in the U.S. District Court. Chin, a judge on the appeals court, didn’t participate in the review of his decision.

The appeals court ruled in 2014 in favor of the HathiTrust Digital Library, a nonprofit project by a group of university libraries to make digitized books available for the disabled.