## Facts

- Google partnered with major research libraries beginning in 2004 to scan books from their collections and create a searchable digital database.
- Google scanned entire books, including many still protected by copyright, without obtaining permission from rightsholders.
- Google created a full-text index and allowed users to search across the scanned corpus.
- For most in-copyright books, Google displayed only limited “snippets” (small, noncontiguous text excerpts around search terms), using technical limits intended to prevent users from reconstructing full works.
- Google stored complete digital copies on its servers, including backup copies.
- Google provided digital copies of scanned books to participating libraries pursuant to agreements requiring library uses consistent with copyright law.
- The Authors Guild and individual authors sued in 2005 in a putative class action alleging infringement based on scanning, storage, indexing, snippet display, and delivery of digital copies to libraries.
- On remand after class-certification issues, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment focused on whether Google’s conduct was fair use; the material facts were treated as undisputed.

## Issues

1. Whether Google’s unauthorized scanning of entire books to create a full-text searchable index and display limited snippets constitutes fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107.
2. Whether Google’s storage of complete digital copies and provision of digital copies to participating libraries, subject to contractual restrictions, constitutes infringement or defeats a fair-use defense.
3. Whether Google’s activities cause cognizable market harm, including harm to existing or potential licensing markets for digitization and search.

## Decision

- The court granted Google’s motion for summary judgment and denied plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment.
- The court held Google’s scanning, indexing, snippet display, and related uses were fair use under § 107 and therefore noninfringing.
- The court concluded that providing digital copies to participating libraries under the described conditions did not make Google a direct or contributory infringer.
- Judgment was entered for Google dismissing the action.

## Legal Principles

- A use is favored under the first fair-use factor when it is highly transformative, such as converting text into a searchable index that serves different functions than reading the original work.
- Commercial purpose does not bar fair use where the use is strongly transformative and provides substantial public benefits.
- Copying an entire work may be permissible under the third factor when reasonably necessary to achieve a lawful transformative purpose (e.g., enabling full-text search), especially when public display is tightly limited.
- Under the fourth factor, fair use is supported where the challenged use does not function as a meaningful substitute for the original and there is no concrete showing of market harm; speculative theories of harm are insufficient.
- Copyright does not necessarily confer control over a claimed licensing market for transformative, non-substitutive uses that do not supplant demand for the original works.
- Supplying copies to third parties under agreements requiring lawful use, without more than speculative risk of misuse, does not establish contributory infringement.

## Conclusion

The court held that Google Books’ mass digitization to create a searchable index and limited snippet display was fair use because it was highly transformative, did not expose substantial expressive content to the public, and did not cause cognizable market substitution or harm; providing copies to participating libraries under restrictive terms likewise did not establish infringement.


Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 954 F. Supp. 2d 282 (S.D.N.Y. 2013)