A
judge ruled in favour of Google and dismissed a lawsuit from The
Author's Guild in connection with the search engine giant's digital-book
project.
Google
Inc.'s project to digitally copy millions of books for online searches
doesn't violate copyright law, a U.S. federal judge ruled, dismissing an
eight-year-old lawsuit against the largest search-engine company.
Google
Books provides a public benefit and is a fair use of copyrighted
material, Judge Denny Chin in downtown New York ruled on Thursday. The
project, which has scanned more than 20 million books so far, doesn't
harm authors or inventors of original works, Chin ruled.
"Google Books provides significant public benefits," Chin wrote.
"It
advances the progress of the arts and sciences, while maintaining
respectful consideration for the rights of authors and other creative
individuals, and without adversely impacting the rights of copyright
holders." Chin's decision comes more than two years after he rejected a
proposed $125-million US settlement in the case filed by The Authors
Guild, which represents writers and individual authors.
The group
sued in 2005 alleging that Google, owner of the world's most popular
search engine, infringed copyrights by scanning and indexing books
without writers' permission.
Google Books digitizes books and
transforms expressive text into a comprehensive word index that helps
researchers and others find books, Chin, an appeals judge sitting in
U.S. District Court, said in his opinion.
The project has become
an important tool for libraries because it makes millions of books
searchable by words and phrases, he said.