Fair use book search.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Texts transformed - Authors Guild's case against Google, Inc. - Brief article

Google can continue to scan books and provide searchable snippets online, a federal judge decided in November. Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that Google Books uses the searchable words in qualitatively new ways, which counts as "fair use" under copyright law.

The Authors Guild, fighting the company in court since 2005, thought Google should pay authors or be quashed. Chin disagreed. He pointed out that authors need not be scared about Google's search function costing them sales. Since text snippets appear with "links to sellers of the book and/or libraries listing the book as part of their collections," the judge said, "a reasonable fact finder could only find that Google Books enhances the...