Google has defeated a legal action mounted to stop it scanning and uploading millions of books. In 2005, the US Authors Guild sued Google alleging that its plans to create a digital library amounted to massive copyright infringement.
In its defence, Google said its plans constituted "fair use" because it was only putting excerpts of texts online.
US judge Denny Chin has now sided with Google and dismissed the case brought by the Guild. Judge Chin accepted Google’s argument that its scanning project was "fair use" adding that the project provides "significant public benefits".
The decision could be a significant milestone for the long-running legal battle between Google, the Authors Guild and US publishers. Both the publishers and authors started legal action over the scanning project in 2005.
Initially, authors and publishers negotiated with Google together. This led to a settlement agreement in 2008 that would have involved Google paying $125m (£78m) into a fund that would be used to compensate the writers of copyrighted works that appeared in the online library. The agreement also placed restrictions on how much of a book Google could make searchable.