3 ms·

They didnt offer the full books afaik.

• kybernetikos 4y ago
  Ahh, you're right. They copied the full books, but they don't let the public view more than snippets unless they have rights to do so. That must be the 'transformative use'.
  • simonh 4y ago
    I think you are allowed to duplicate short extracts of works as part of fair use.
    • iudqnolq 4y ago
      It's a four factor test (but the second factor rarely counts). the purpose and character of your use the nature of the copyrighted work the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and the effect of the use upon the potential market. The court found that Google copied the entirety of the work into their search index, but that this (taking into account the strict result snippet restrictions) didn't effect the market because no one would decide they didn't need the book now they had the snippet.
• dragonwriter 4y ago
  > They didnt offer the full books afaik. They got sued, and the settlement didn’t allow them to offer the full books except for-purchase with a particular revenue sharing arrangement.
  • iudqnolq 4y ago
    ...and then the court threw out the settlement as unfair, and then the court ruled in Google's favor. But the court noted that Google was right on the edge of fair use. Google notably prevented the previews from being usable as a replacement for an original purchase by only displaying 1/8 of a page snippets, blacklisting 1 snippet per page, blacklisting every tenth page completely, and blacklisting works where a single snippet could be all you wanted such as dictionaries and recipe books.
    • kybernetikos 4y ago
      I still feel like if I'd done something similar as an individual I would not have got away with it. Say I downloaded z-library and wrote a search system that only showed me snippets (for searching). How likely do you think courts would find in my favour?
      • iudqnolq 4y ago
        Yes, the court also found that their collaboration with libraries to legally scan the books mattered.