Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google Inc., 954 F. Supp. 2d 282

Google scanned over 20 million library books (including many in-copyright) and created a full-text index; it provided libraries with digital copies and displays short verbatim "snippets" in search results.
Plaintiffs (individual authors and the Authors Guild) sued for copyright infringement for Google’s unlicensed full-text scanning, distribution to libraries, and snippet display.
Google defended principally on statutory fair use grounds under 17 U.S.C. § 107 and sought summary judgment; plaintiffs moved for partial summary judgment.
The Second Circuit vacated earlier class certification and remanded for resolution of fair use issues; the district court then considered cross-motions for summary judgment on fair use.
The court assumed plaintiffs established a prima facie infringement but held Google’s uses were fair: the index/snippet display is transformative search functionality and the corpus also enables non-expressive research uses (data/text mining); library copies likewise constituted fair use.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Google’s scanning and snippet display is fair use (purpose/character)	Google’s use is commercial and substitutes for authors’ works	Use is highly transformative: creates searchable index and enables new data-mining research; not a reading substitute	Held fair — first factor strongly favors Google
Nature of the works (factor 2)	Many scanned works remain protected expressive works	Majority are published, nonfiction, and publicly available	Factor plays little role; slightly favors Google
Amount copied (factor 3) — full-text scanning	Full-text verbatim copying weighs against fair use	Full copying necessary for full-text search and data analysis; displayed snippets are limited	Weighs slightly against Google but not dispositive
Market effect (factor 4)	Scanning and snippets could supplant sales and reduce market	Google does not sell scans; snippets drive discovery and link to sellers; libraries owning books already benefit from scans	Held that use likely enhances markets; factor strongly favors Google
Liability for providing library copies / secondary liability	Google’s distribution to libraries is infringing	Libraries’ uses (search, preservation, services for print-disabled) are transformative and protected; thus no secondary liability	Held fair; libraries’ uses protected, so no secondary liability for Google

Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994) (framework for transformative use and fair use factors)
Feist Publ’ns, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991) (prima facie copyright infringement standard)
Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enters., 471 U.S. 539 (1985) (commerciality and market harm as fair use considerations)
Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley Ltd., 448 F.3d 605 (2d Cir. 2006) (transformative use and necessity of copying whole works)
Sony Corp. of Am. v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417 (1984) (copying entire works can sometimes be fair use)
Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 508 F.3d 1146 (9th Cir. 2007) (thumbnail images for search are transformative)
Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp., 336 F.3d 811 (9th Cir. 2003) (image search thumbnails constitute fair use)
Blanch v. Koons, 467 F.3d 244 (2d Cir. 2006) (commercial benefit does not preclude fair use)
Am. Geophysical Union v. Texaco Inc., 60 F.3d 913 (2d Cir. 1994) (plaintiff bears burden on fair use defense)
Castle Rock Entm’t, Inc. v. Carol Publ’g Grp., 150 F.3d 132 (2d Cir. 1998) (limited weight to commercial gain)
Authors Guild v. Google Inc., 770 F. Supp. 2d 666 (S.D.N.Y.) (prior settlement-rejection opinion referenced in litigation history)
Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google Inc., 721 F.3d 132 (2d Cir. 2013) (remanded for resolution of fair use issues)
Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust, 902 F. Supp. 2d 445 (S.D.N.Y. 2012) (libraries’ mass-digitization held fair use)