In an earlier blog post I discussed the implications of a landmark decision by a New York district court in the dispute between Google and the author’s guild. Normally, the digitisation would quite obviously be an infringement of an author’s copyright, however on the facts the court ruled in Google’s favor; the court allowed Google to digitalise hundreds of thousands of books without the author’s permission. The ruling was based heavily on public policy. Essentially the court considered that giving the public the ability to search through a vast selection of books was proportional to the minute level of infringement that the author’s suffered.
It should be mentioned that the digitalisation of these books allowed the user to read only a small passage of the book which contained its search term, it did not allow the public to read the books in its entirety.
In the UK, the House of Lords is now to debate on a proposal by the Government to modernise copyright for the digital economy. The proposed legislation would not only allow for the digitisation of books, but of other forms of media as well. Furthermore, proposal seeks to allow researchers to gain access to a wider range of materials, and use larger proportions for private non-commercial uses. The proposals, if approved, will be implemented slowly over a relatively long period of time.
Source:
http://www.newstatesman.com/business/2013/12/digitising-copyrighted-film-books-and-music-about-become-legal-and-about-time-too
