Google Print and the Fair Use Doctrine
Information Today, Vol. 22, No. 10, p. 17, November 2005
3 Pages Posted: 10 Jul 2010
Date Written: November 2005
Abstract
Last December, Google announced its plan to scan millions of books from libraries around the world. Searchers enter words or phrases and the Google search engine finds books that match the search terms. Google presents the results by showing the search terms with an additional sentence or so of text in order to show the context, along with bibliographic information and links to booksellers or libraries. Google does not show full pages unless given specific permission by the publisher.
Google has long had arrangements with several publishers to scan books into the Google Print database. However, in scanning books owned by libraries Google is not receiving copyright permission from the author or publisher. Not surprisingly, the Authors Guild and several individual authors recently filed a federal lawsuit against Google claiming that Google is “engaging in massive copyright infringement”.
Keywords: copyright law, lawsuits, infringement, fair use, Google, Google Print, libraries, scanning, Constitution, Authors Guild
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