Those who follow the major developments in the cyberspace and intellectual property law, remember that in 2005 the (U.S) Authors Guild (AG) sued Google Inc. for its Google Book project, which has digitally scanned and indexed more than 20 million books so far but without the permission of their authors. The AG claimed that the internet giant violated the copyrights of the authors. In the latest development of the case, Appeals Judge Chin of the US Federal Court has ruled that Google has not infringed U.S copyright law, relying on the so-called “Fair Use Doctrine”, which exempts from liability those who infringe the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work.
Judge Chins stated that Google's concept of digitally scanning and indexing books was “not a tool to be used to read books” and that “Google doesn’t sell the scans it makes of books or sell the snippets of books it displays”. He also stated that "Google Book added value to the original and that writers also benefited “because the scanning project could enhance the sales of books”.
However, the essence of the Judge's decision was that Google Book provides a significant public benefit and was therefore a fair use of the authors' works. He emphasized that the project would help libraries, academic researchers and scholars in their work. In other words, Google Book considered as an innovation and not a violation. The AG, however will appeal the decision.
Nevertheless, observers have said that since the implementation of Google Book few would want to go back to the card catalog system that libraries had in the past. If Judge Chin's decision is upheld on appeal, Google would continue to dominate and innovate the search technology. This would be welcomed by investors in Google Inc. as 70 percent of the ad revenue is tied to online searches in the U.S., according to researcher EMarketer Inc.
As expected, after the court ruling, shares of Google have risen.
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