Kenneth Crews (Director, Copyright Advisory Office at Columbia University) has shared his notes from the October 30th appellate hearing of the Authors Guild v. HathiTrust case.
As Crews notes in an earlier post on the original ruling, the case has important implications for fair use in libraries:
[T]he judge ruled on motions for summary judgment, finding that the retention and use of millions of digital books for purposes of preservation, text search, and accessibility for the visually impaired were within the limits of fair use. The ruling is enormously important for the continued vitality of HathiTrust, but Judge Baer’s written opinion offers an analysis of fair use that will be helpful in the evaluation of many future projects, especially in the context of libraries, education, and research.
The case also has implications for digital humanities scholars, so much so that in June, 2012, a “Brief of Digital Humanities and Law Scholars as Amici Curiae in Authors Guild v. Hathitrust” was filed in support of “non-consumptive” uses of digitized texts.
