Dive Summary:
- A district court judge on Wednesday decided in favor of HathiTrust, a shared digital collection based at the University of Michigan, marking the third fair use victory for universities this year.
- The Authors Guild filed suit against HathiTrust--which was formed by the Michigan library in connection with several other universities after Google's scanning of their print books left them with a digital collection--and its partners last fall after disagreeing with the libraries' decision to make limited use of HathiTrust's holdings without paying for permission.
- District Judge Harold Baer's ruling was overwhelmingly in favor of HathiTrust and the universities, and cited the protection of disabled students' rights and the database's qualification for fair use protection as a result of its "transformative" properties.
From the article:
They say bad news comes in threes. Based on the last six months, the authors and publishers fighting copyright battles in higher education might agree. Copyright holders lost another battle this week in their legal war with universities over the boundaries of educational "fair use" in the digital age. A district court judge on Wednesday issued a decision in Authors Guild v. HathiTrust, a year-long lawsuit over a shared digital repository based at the University of Michigan. ...