PW: Guild Motion Asks for Quick Ruling on HathiTrust’s Fair Use Defense

From Publisher’s Weekly:

Although the Google Book Settlement has been rejected by the court, one reason the parties were even able to reach an agreement was by avoiding the question of whether Google’s scanning of copyrighted books was a violation of fair use. The issue came up late last year when the Authors Guild led a group of copyright holders in filing a lawsuit against HathiTrust contending that its scanning program in which Google has converted millions of books into digital files stored by the Trust was copyright infringement. Now the Guild is placing the question of fair use front and center in a motion filed February 28 that asks the judge hearing the case to issue a “partial judgment on the pleadings,” and rule that the unauthorized digitization is in fact not protected by fair use.

Read the Complete PW Article
See Also: Plaintiffs Seek Fair Use Ruling in Mass Book Digitization Case (via Author’s Guild Blog)
See Also: Full Text of Motion Discussed in the Article and Blog Post (29 pages; PDF)

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