Federal court finds Google books are “fair use”

If you rely on Google books for research or just browsing interesting titles, you may want to thank a federal court for their recent ruling that will keep the online resource freely available.

This week, Judge Pierre N. Leval of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals found in Google’s favor in a complaint brought alleging copyright infringement, according to the Washington Post. The ruling means that Google books is permitted under the “fair use” doctrine of copyright law, and will allow the search engine to continue posting copied sections of books and displaying “snippets” of text from copyrighted materials.

The Judge stated that Google’s search and snippet functions are both protected from infringement suits as they are “transformative” uses, which aid in disseminating knowledge without making a substantial alternative for the original work available.

Transformative uses are often thought of as pertaining to translations or adaptations of works, for example of a book to a a movie script. But the Judge clarified that even a copy of an original work, in order to make it available for criticism or wider distribution of information about it, can be considered transformative.

Even if libraries were to make full copies of books from Google available, the Judge ruled, Google would still not be responsible for the infringement.