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Tag: Authors Guild

  • Fair Use Prevails As Google Wins Book-Scanning Case

    So, you know that book-scanning legal battle that Google has been fighting for the past eight years against the Authors Guild? Google just won.

    In a New York court, Judge Denny Chin ruled that Google can continue its book-scanning ways because it’s fair use, being how it’s “highly transformative”. It doesn’t hurt the original market for the material, he found, noting that it has become an important tool for researchers.

    Here’s the ruling in its entirety (via GigaOm):

    Google Books ruling on fair use.pdf

    According to Chin, Google’s book search tool can lead to new income for authors, rather than depriving authors of it, as Google doesn’t sell scanned books or make whole books available.

    The judge has found what many fair use advocates have been saying for years, but now a major precedent has been set.

  • Authors Guild Calls Amazon/Goodreads Deal a ‘Devastating Act of Vertical Integration’

    On Thursday Amazon announced its acquisition of Goodreads, the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations.

    At its core, Goodreads functioned as a social network for ardent readers. With this acquisition, Amazon has snatched up an independent network that has the ability to shape reader perceptions on hundreds of millions of books – and was, in essence, their largest competitor when it comes to book reviews. Reports indicate that Amazon paid about $150 million for Goodreads.

    The Authors Guild isn’t too happy about the move, calling it a “devastating act of vertical integration.”

    One example should make it clear how formidable this combination is. For “Animals Make Us Human” by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson, Amazon has 123 customer reviews, and B&N has about 40 (they report 150, but that figure includes ratings as well as reviews). Goodreads swamps these figures, with 469 reviews and 2,266 ratings for the book.

    As an independent platform, Goodreads, with its 16 million members, posed a serious competitive threat to Amazon. No more.

    “Amazon’s acquisition of Goodreads is a textbook example of how modern Internet monopolies can be built,” said Scott Turow, Authors Guild president. “The key is to eliminate or absorb competitors before they pose a serious threat. With its 16 million subscribers, Goodreads could easily have become a competing on-line bookseller, or played a role in directing buyers to a site other than Amazon. Instead, Amazon has scuttled that potential and also squelched what was fast becoming the go-to venue for on-line reviews, attracting far more attention than Amazon for those seeking independent assessment and discussion of books. As those in advertising have long known, the key to driving sales is controlling information.”

    Goodreads launched in 2007 and since then has built up a user base of 16 million members, who have added 525 million books and 23 million reviews. The Authors Guild warns that with this acquisition, Amazon’s garden walls are about to grow much higher.

    [via PaidContent]

  • Google Book Scanning Legal Saga Continues

    Last month, Google announced that after seven years of litigation, the company finally reached a settlement with the Association of American Publishers regarding book scanning. The saga, however, is not over yet.

    On Friday, Google filed a brief in New York, in an effort to prevent authors from suing with class action status, as the Authors Guild is reportedly still seeking $750 per book. PaidContent’s Jeff Roberts shares the legal document:

    Google Appeal Brief on Cert

    Essentially, Google sees its whole Library Project as fair use, and believes many authors that would be included in a class action suit actually benefit from the project. With this in mind, Google feels class action status would prevent it from being able to defend itself on a case-by-case basis, which would be necessary for making its point.

    Here’s a snippet from the document:

    “Plaintiffs claim that Google Books’ scanning and snippet display of their work infringes their copyrights and seek to represent a class of authors in a suit to stop the project and to recover statutory damages. Google’s principal defense – the central issue in this litigation – is that the project is fair use: Google’s uses are ‘transformative because they do not ‘supersede’ the books but rather ‘add something new,’ a greatly improved way of finding them…The transformative nature of Google Books and the fact that, as a general matter, it makes books more accessible, more likely to be read and cited, and more likely to be sold render the entire project fair use…(holiding that digitization fo books for use in libraries’ online full-text search index is fair use because the use is transformative and causes non-speculative market harm). But if the district court rejects the contention that the entire project is fair use, Google is also entitled to present its fair use defense as to uses of individual works, and the court must evaluate Google’s particular uses of each of a wide variety of books.”

    And the saga continues…

  • Court Grants Stay In Google Books Case

    Court Grants Stay In Google Books Case

    For a quick update on the ongoing case between Google and the Authors Guild over Google Books, a judge granted a stay in the case on Tuesday, while the court reviews the recent decision to give authors the go ahead to sue Google.

    Interestingly, this comes just a couple weeks after Google was denied request for a stay.

    Jeff Roberts at Paid Content shares the court document, which says:

    “Appellant Google, Inc. has filed a motion to stay district court proceedings pending appeal of the class certification order and appellees have filed a response stating that they consent to the stay, although not to the arguments put forward in the motion as to why Google expects to prevail on appeal. IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the motion to stay proceedings pending appeal is GRANTED.”

    Here’s the actual document:

    CA2 Order Granting AG Stay