A US federal appeals panel in Manhattan, New York has supported Google’s plan to create the world’s largest digital library, saying that the project may benefit a number of authors.
The Authors Guild, which represents a group of authors, filed a lawsuit against Google over the company’s plans unveiled in 2004 to create a digital library by digitally scanning books to provide snippets of text online to internet users.
In its lawsuit, the Authors Guild is demanding for $3bn in damages related to Google’s project.
The Authors Guild alleged that Google has scanned 12 million books for its proposed digital library, the majority of which are believed to be protected by copyright, without seeking permission from the authors concerned.
In May 2012, Manhattan federal judge Denny Chin allowed the Authors Guild to file a class action suit against Google and rejected the company’s bid to dismiss claims.
However in August last year, the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals said that Google may appeal Chin’s ruling.
In the latest ruling, US Judge Pierre Leval urged that class certification issues were best reviewed in tandem with the underlying copyright liability/fair use determination.
He suggested that the appellate court should hold off on Google’s appeal of class certification and refer the case to Judge Chin for a decision on copyright liability.
Google has already entered into contracts with libraries for scanning, distributing and displaying about 20 million books for the project and planned to have 130 million books in the company’s digital library.
