Authors Guild v. HathiTrust
| Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Court | United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit |
| Full case name | Authors Guild v. HathiTrust |
| Decided | June 10, 2014 (2d Cir.); October 10, 2012 (SDNY) |
| Citation(s) | 755 F.3d 87 (2d Cir. 2014); 902 F.Supp.2d 445, 104 U.S.P.Q.2d 1659, Copyr.L.Rep. ¶ 30327 (SDNY) |
| Court membership | |
| Judge(s) sitting | Harold Baer, Jr. (SDNY); John M. Walker, Jr., José A. Cabranes, Barrington Daniels Parker, Jr. (2d Cir.) |
| Keywords | |
| copyright infringement, fair use | |
Authors Guild v. HathiTrust, 755 F.3d 87 (2d Cir. 2014), is a copyright decision finding search and accessibility uses of digitized books to be fair use.
The Authors Guild, other author organizations, and individual authors claimed that the HathiTrust Digital Library had infringed their copyrights through its use of books scanned by Google. A federal court ruled against the plaintiffs in October 2012, finding that HathiTrust's use was permissible under fair use. The plaintiffs appealed the decision to the Second Circuit, and were rebuffed in 2014. In an opinion by Barrington Daniels Parker, Jr., the Second Circuit largely affirmed the lower court's findings of fair use for accessibility and search, remanding only to consider whether the plaintiffs had standing to sue about library preservation copies. The remaining claims were settled on January 6, 2015.
The HathiTrust Digital Library (HDL) is a spin-off of the Google Books Library Project. It was founded in 2008 by the Committee on Institutional Cooperation and the University of California system. The collections of these university libraries were digitized by Google and then combined by HDL. The digitization by Google has been the subject of a separate lawsuit.
HDL's main objective is the long-term preservation of the collection. Member libraries may order replacement copies of works if "(1) the member already owned an original copy, (2) the member's original copy is lost, destroyed, or stolen, and (3) a replacement copy is unobtainable at a fair price." The HDL main functionality is full-text search. When search results are found in works in the public domain, the work is displayed online, and so are works for which the copyright holder has granted permission. For other works, only page numbers and the number of search results per page are shown. In addition, the HDL makes its collection available to students with print disabilities by offering them secure system access for screen readers. The collection of works available to print-disabled students through HDL is often larger and easier to navigate than those offered through most university student disability student services offices.
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