Digitization not Copyright Violation: US Court

Libraries that digitize books in order to make them searchable do not infringe copyright, a US federal appellate court has ruled recently. The decision, issued by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, marks a major defeat for the Authors Guild of USA, which had contended that the Hathi Trust -- a joint digital book storage project of 13 universities -- infringed writers' copyright by making digital copies of the books. A three-judge panel of the appellate court said the libraries and Hathi Trust are protected by fair use principles, because the digital copies, which enable people to search through books online, are “transformative.” “The creation of a full-text searchable database is a quintessentially transformative use,” the appellate said in its decision.

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