Scott Martin, USA TODAY 5:09 p.m. EST November 14, 2013
SAN FRANCISCO — Google on Thursday landed a key legal victory against the publishing industry in what could pave the way for the search giant to continue its quest to scan the world’s books.
A New York federal judge dismissed a class-action lawsuit from book authors against the Mountain View, Calif., company. The long-simmering battle stems from a suit brought by the Authors Guild, which sued Google in 2005 in Manhattan federal court, claiming copyright infringement.
The Authors Guild charged Google’s online library was in violation of “fair use” of copyrighted works by providing snippets of works.
The Authors Guild guild was seeking $750 for each copyrighted book made digital, a huge sum considering that the Internet search company had scanned more than 20 million books.
“This is a huge victory for Google, which had previously tried to resolve legal issues regarding Google Books by class-action settlement,” says Mark McKenna, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame.
Circuit Judge Denny Chin found Google’s book-scanning project did not run afoul of fair use of the content under copyright law. The judge said that the Google service contributes to new audiences that offer new sources of income for authors and publishers.
“Google’s use of copyrighted works is highly transformative,” wrote Chin. “Words in books are being used in a way they have not been used before.”
Google cheered the legal victory.
“This has been a long road, and we are absolutely delighted with today’s judgement,” the company said in a statement. “As we have long said, Google Books is in compliance with copyright law and acts like a card catalog for the digital age, giving users the ability to find books to buy or borrow.”
The Authors Guild did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Law professor McKenna says the decision vindicates Google’s massive book-scanning project on fair use grounds, yielding unnecessary an elaborate proposed compensation structure for the effort.
“The decision is sure to be appealed, as its implications are enormous,” he says.