Justice, Google Books wins and continue to digitize books

After eight years of litigation, a U.S. judge ruled in favor of Google in its project to digitize books from Google Books, which will be able to continue.

Google Does violates copyright by scanning books without permission? Judge Denny Chin in New York, after eight years of litigation, said no, in a ruling. He estimated that the Google Books project was a "Fair Use" under the legislation on intellectual property.

In 2005, an appeal was filed against the giant digital, supported in particular by the Union of American authors (Authors' Guild). Google was accused of having scanned books without the consent of their authors and publishers, before offering in the online search results and propose extracts.

According to the decision of the U.S. court, scanning is considered a "highly transformative" process can not be equated with a single copy. The judge found that from the time when only extracts emerged research, the Google Books service is based on the principle of "Fair Use" ("fair use" sets limits and exceptions to exclusive rights to the author about his work). The indexing of web pages is based on the same principle.

The judge also pointed out that Google does not sell himself scanned books. "Google Books has become an important tool for researchers and librarians" and "expanding access to books," he added that Google Books gave a "new life" books.

For the Executive Director of the Union of the authors, Paul Aiken, such a "mass digitization and use of mass far beyond the limits of fair use." He announced to appeal the decision soon.

Google has signed many contracts with major university libraries to the project. Ten million copies have already been digitized now, six million books protected by copyright.