The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) recently joined other members of the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) - the American Library Association (ALA) and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) - and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to file a friend of the court brief (PDF) in Authors Guild v. Google, Inc.. In the lawsuit authors allege that Google violated copyright by scanning books to create Google Book Search (GBS), a search tool similar to its Internet search engine.
The LCA/EFF brief defends GBS as permissible under the doctrine of fair use, a flexible right that allows copying without payment or permission where the public benefit strongly outweighs the harm to individual rightsholders. It further argues that Google Book Search is tremendously beneficial to the public, that this public benefit tilts the analysis firmly in favour of fair use, that a legislative 'fix' is both unnecessary and unworkable, and that the Authors Guild should not be permitted to shut down Google Book Search after encouraging public reliance on the tool for years.
The members of LCA have long had a commitment to supporting libraries' interest in the Google Book Search settlement agreement.
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