Google Lawsuit Dragging On

In a seven-year old lawsuit against Google, authors are still seeking damages against the Internet giant over scanning their works without permission. The Authors Guild and several other author and photographer organizations filed suit contending “massive copyright infringement” by Google Books. Judge Denny Chin of U.S. district court in Manhattan ruled Friday that: “Google [had] a “de facto monopoly” to copy books en masse without permission and served to “further entrench” its market power in online searches.”

Google has: “scanned more than 20 million books, and posted English-language snippets of more than 4 million, since agreeing in 2004 with large research libraries to digitize current and out-of-print works for its Google Books website.” Google in defense contends that: “No economic harm from its scanning and display of their works and the creation of a searchable index to find themGoogle Books creates enormous transformative benefits without reducing the value of the authors’ work,” it said. “(It) therefore passes with ease the ultimate test of fair use.”

Judge Chin gave “class-action” status to the case earlier this year and stated that organizations representing photographers and graphic artists may also take part in the litigation.