On November 14th, Circuit Judge Denny Chin ruled against the charges put forth by the Authors Guild against Google regarding its execution of unauthorized scanning and copying of books and uploading them to the Google Library program.
According to The Authors Guild, Judge Chin approved Google’s use of the published works as “fair use,” and he claimed that the project maintained “significant public benefits.” In his report, Google’s more accessible and user-friendly scans were justified. He duly noted, in a report presented by BBC News, that Google restricted some material from the original work, preserving copyright regulations.
The Authors Guild had originally sued the valuable company in 2005, leading to a colossal copyright infringement. It argued for a $750 charge on each book uploaded into the digital library. Google faced a potential $3 billion loss. Was this a significant loss to the multi-billionaire company? This was not so much about a loss of money, but more so about a reputable standard.
Prior to the filed case in 2008, authors and publishers negotiated a $125 million compensation for the copyrighted work, and limitations on the amount of content published. The U.S. Court disregarded the negotiation supporting Google’s rights with “de facto monopoly,” BBC News reported.
In April of 2013, Google included more than 30 million copyrighted works into its digital library (The Authors Guild 1). The president of the Authors Guild complained, stating that Google exceeded the copyrighted boundaries of the “fair use” clause.
Brian Scanlan ’14 agreed stating, “Google should not have the right to take other people’s works and post them online without consent or compensation.”
Many, like Brian, feel that Google stretched certain legalities to an unfair point. Although the claim may allude to Google’s independent supply of copyrighted works, the search engine does in fact have copyright agreements with four universities, including Stanford, Oxford, Harvard, and the University of Michigan.
Sanya Gupta ’16 added, “If Google was within copyright laws, then the ruling is acceptable; Google deserved to win the court case. Although copyrighting someone’s work is not acceptable, they did have permission and were within certain limitations of the published works.”
Some, like Sanya, believe that Google was certainly in their copyrighted limitations. This lawsuit ultimately ended in its favor, reassuring Google’s reputation and value.