It's unfortunate that the ArsTechnica coverage is heavily slanted toward Google, and SCOTUSblog's against, to the point where it's hard to recognize the two art

It's unfortunate that the ArsTechnica coverage is heavily slanted toward Google, and SCOTUSblog's against, to the point where it's hard to recognize the two articles as describing the same case. Neither makes a good-faith effort to square the two viewpoints. SCOTUSblog coverage: > The challengers, in their appeal, argued that the lower court decisions awarding Google a summary victory deviated sharply from the traditional view that one who copies a protected creative work can only claim the legal defense of “fair use” if the copying satisfies the four factors that Congress spelled out in federal law. > What happened in this case, the challengers argued, was that lower courts permitted Google to rely upon its claim of “fair use” by inventing a new legal concept — that is, so long as the one who makes copies “transforms” the work into another, culturally useful mode, then it is legal. That, the guild and the authors asserted, “empowers judges to approve any re-use of copyrighted works that those judges deem socially beneficial.” http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/04/googles-book-copying-project-survives-challenge/#more-241616 http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/04/googles-book-copying-proje... The Fair Use factors: > 1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; > 2. the nature of the copyrighted work; > 3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and > 4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#U.S._fair_use_factors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#U.S._fair_use_factors From the Author's guild: >Google argued, and still argues, that its book-search program (now called Google Books) offers great public benefits and therefore the copying should be protected under the legal doctrine of “fair use.” We do not believe that private companies should be able to make full digital copies of copyrighted books en masse for commercial purposes under the fair use doctrine—that is, without compensating the rightsholders. So the authors, publishers, and Google sat down to reach a compromise. A proper solution, we believed, would allow readers to benefit while also making sure that authors and publishers got paid for Google’s use of their work. > After 30 months of talks, we reached an agreement in October 2008: Google would pay out $125 million. Some would go to the owners of the books that were scanned without permission; the rest would fund the Book Rights Registry, an organization that would track down and distribute fees to authors. Google would be able to display out-of-print books to users and charge licensing fees for copyrighted works. Also, the settlement required Google to provide portals in every public library and more than 4,000 colleges and universities in the U.S., allowing widespread access. https://www.authorsguild.org/where-we-stand/authors-guild-v-google/ https://www.authorsguild.org/where-we-stand/authors-guild-v-...