The construction and display of the Google Books digital library is protected by the fair use defense to copyright infringement, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held Friday.
Rejecting a decade-long attack on Google’s mass reproduction of millions of books as well as its presentation of “snippets”—sections of works set alongside information on how readers can buy the books—the court said Google Books has a “highly convincing transformative purpose” and the company cannot be held liable for violating the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. §107.
