Just recently, the University of California, Berkeley won a legal battle as the U.S. Court of Appeals made a final decision regarding the Author’s Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust case. The court indicated that the principle of fair use lets HathiTrust to make a text database of copyrighted works and offering them in formats for the disabled to access.
HathiTrust members founded the HathiTrust Digital Library. The library feature digital copies of millions of works which cover a plethora of varying subjects.
The court indicated that practices of HathiTrust were a fair use of copyrightyed works, therefore not amounting to copyright infringement. Firstly, HathiTrust offers a search engine that lets users search for terms across the whole repository. Secondly, the Univeristy of Michigan library, also a member of the HathiTrust, offer users with printing disabilities entry to a complete text of copyright works.
The court concluded that such activities was an act of fair use and reserved judgment on activity of third library preservation.
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