On Nov. 14, a New York federal court judge ruled to uphold Google’s ambitious project to scan and digitize millions of books from cooperating libraries into a massive, searchable online database. This was a victory not only for Google but also for the greater public good. Judge Denny Chin dismissed a copyright lawsuit brought by authors, finding that Google’s copying and indexing of more than 20 million books to create a new, highly useful search tool is protected by fair use.
Google Books digitizes entire copies of millions of books, the majority of which are out of print, and creates a comprehensive word index that helps readers, scholars, researchers and others to identify and find books. Google doesn’t display whole copies of books that are still under copyright, however; it allows users to see only limited snippets. After they have read previews through the database, users are then directed to external vendors, where they can find and purchase the books they are interested in. The Silicon Valley-based search engine giant describes the initiative as a service that “acts like a card catalog for the digital age.”