Second Circuit Finds That, Once Again, Book Scanning Is Fair Use

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has delivered a resounding reaffirmation of fair use principles in the latest decision to go against the Authors Guild in its longstanding battle against book digitization.  The unanimous opinion of the three-judge panel in Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust, No. 12-4547-cv (2d Cir. June 10, 2014) affirmed nearly all of an October 2012 district court ruling that a book scanning project of a consortium of universities called HathiTrust was protected by the fair use doctrine.

HathiTrust works with Google to digitize the books held in the member institutions' libraries.  The scanned books are hosted by the HathiTrust Digital Library ("HDL"), which allows the public to search for particular terms in the database.  Unless the copyright owner allows broader use, the search results only show the frequency and page numbers on which the search terms appear.  HDL also allows people who can demonstrate that they are unable to read a work in