University libraries offer online “lending” of scanned in-copyright books; Ars Technica, April 7, 2020

Timothy B. Lee, Ars Technica; University libraries offer online “lending” of scanned in-copyright books

"A consortium of university libraries called HathiTrust recently announced a solution to this problem, called the Emergency Temporary Access Service. It allows participating HathiTrust member libraries to offer their patrons digital scans of books that they can "check out" and read online.

HathiTrust has a history of pushing the boundaries of copyright. It was the defendant in a landmark 2014 ruling that established the legality of library book scanning. At the time, HathiTrust was only allowing people with print disabilities to access the full text of scanned books. Now HathiTrust is expanding access to more people—though still with significant limits...

These limits distinguish HathiTrust's service from another recently announced "emergency library." Two weeks ago, the Internet Archive announced it was offering the general public the opportunity to check out 1.4 million scanned books. During the pandemic, the Internet Archive isn't limiting the number of people who can "borrow" a book simultaneously.

Cornell University legal scholar James Grimmelmann tells Ars that the limits on the HathiTrust program will put the group in a stronger position if it is ever challenged in court. The same fair use doctrine that allows HathiTrust to scan books in the first place might also justify what the organization is doing now—though that's far from certain."

Thanks to a landmark ruling, information just got a little more free; Atlantic, 10/20/15

Robinson Meyer, Atlantic; After 10 Years, Google Books Is Legal: Thanks to a landmark ruling, information just got a little more free:

"In other words, Google Books is legal.

And not only that, but the case is likely resolved for good. In 2012, a district court ruled that Hathitrust, a university consortium that used Google Books’s scans to make books accessible to blind students, was not only a legal form of fair use but also required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Experts say that the Supreme Court is unlikely to hear an appeal, because so many district court judges, and two different federal circuits, have found themselves so broadly in agreement about the nature of transformative use online.

“The Authors Guild is deluding itself to think that this is an area that is open and controversial in the view of the lower courts,” Grimmelmann said.

This isn’t only good news for fans of Google Books. It helps makes the legal boundaries of fair use clear to other organizations who may try to take advantage of it, including libraries and non-profits.

“It gives us a better senses of where fair use lies,” says Dan Cohen, the executive director of the Digital Public Library of America. They “give a firmer foundation and certainty for non-profits.”"

Titanic victory for fair use: appeals court says Google's book-scanning is legal; BoingBoing.net, 10/16/15

Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing.net; Titanic victory for fair use: appeals court says Google's book-scanning is legal:

"The Second Circuit ruling is remarkable for many reasons. First, the venue: the Second, which incorporates publishing's home base in New York City, is a court that is generally favorable to rightsholders. This isn't the first time the Second has surprised copyright extremists, though: last year, the court ruled that the Hathi Trust's noncommercial/academic book-scanning project was also fair use, making this the second high-profile loss for the Authors Guild in two years.

The Hathi Trust ruling completely freaked out the Authors Guild and copyright maximalists everywhere. The Copyright Office, which is friendly to those interests, was motivated by Hathi to create a bizarre, incoherent proposal to put the Authors Guild in charge of who can use literature in America, giving them the power to collect license payments on behalf of writers who never joined the organization, including anonymous and long-dead writers -- this, of course, would give the Authors Guild more money with which to launch foolish, doomed, high-profile lawsuits.

The Librarian of Congress is retiring after a generation in office and may well be replaced by someone who believes in fair use and user rights and a balanced approach to copyright, and since the Librarian of Congress controls the Copyright Office, the people outraged by Hathi are totally flipping out and calling for the separation of the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office, so that they can continue to have outsized influence over the future of creativity, culture and scholarship in America.

The Google Books ruling will only make this fight more intense. Appointing a new Librarian will be one of Obama's last acts in office, and the Democratic party is deeply riven by internal disputes between the netroots and the big entertainment companies who are its financial backers. The war-rooms of both camps are definitely buzzing this morning."

Court OKs Universities' Quest To Turn To More Digital Copies Of Books; NPR, 6/10/14

Lynn Neary, NPR; Court OKs Universities' Quest To Turn To More Digital Copies Of Books:

"A U.S. appeals court has ruled against a group of authors, deciding in favor of a consortium of universities in a case that hinged on copyright law and provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The universities had allowed Google to make digital copies of more than 10 million books so that they could be searchable by specific terms."

Unlocking the Riches of HathiTrust; American Libraries, 1/16/13

American Libraries; Unlocking the Riches of HathiTrust: "The constitutionality of digital fair use was upheld this past October, when US District Court Judge Harold Baer summarily dismissed the Authors Guild’s year-old lawsuit against the HathiTrust library collaborative to block the use of its growing repository of millions of full-text book scans. Calling the project “the enduring work of libraries,” HathiTrust Executive Director John Wilkin told American Libraries the organization continues to plan “more and better” uses of its scanned content. An appeal is pending. Meantime, blogerati Karen Coyle, Barbara Fister, and James Grimmelmann shared with AL how they see this decision shaping the future of sharing digitally preserved print materials."

Authors Guild Appeals HathiTrust Decision, Library Copyright Alliance Issues Statement; Library Journal, 11/9/12

Gary Price, Library Journal; Authors Guild Appeals HathiTrust Decision, Library Copyright Alliance Issues Statement: "On November 8, the Authors Guild appealed the verdict in its case against the HathiTrust to the U.S. Court of Appeals Second Circuit. The Guild had filed suit against the Trust in 2011, alleging that the Trust’s digitization efforts constituted copyright infringement. However, on October 10, Judge Baer of the United States District Court Southern District of New York found overwhelmingly in favor of HathiTrust."

Victory for HathiTrust and Fair Use; Columbia Science and Technology Law Review; 10/23/12

Rachel Bandli, Columbia Science and Technology Law Review; Victory for HathiTrust and Fair Use: "The Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust, decided earlier this month, marks the second victory this year for fair use of copyrighted works for scholarly purposes (the first being Cambridge University Press v. Becker). In an opinion issued by Judge Baer, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted HathiTrust’s motion for summary judgment, allowing HathiTrust to continue its current use of copyrighted works."

Authors Guild Sues HathiTrust and 5 Universities Over Digitized Books; Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/12/11

Chronicle of Higher Education; Authors Guild Sues HathiTrust and 5 Universities Over Digitized Books:

"The Authors Guild, the Australian Society of Authors, a Canadian writers’ union, and eight individual authors are suing HathiTrust and five universities for copyright infringement, the guild announced on Monday afternoon."

[Press Release] Universities Band Together To Join Orphan Works Project; Cornell University Library, 8/24/11

[Press Release] Cornell University Library; Universities Band Together To Join Orphan Works Project:

"Leaders at Cornell, Duke, Emory and Johns Hopkins universities jointly announced today that they would begin making the full text of thousands of “orphan works” in their library collections digitally accessible to students, faculty and researchers at their own institutions."

HathiTrust Launching Full-Text Library of Books; Information Today, 10/22/09

Barbara Quint, Information Today; HathiTrust Launching Full-Text Library of Books:

"With all the controversy still swirling around Google Books and its post-settlement offerings, an alternative route to the millions of digitized books and journals supplied by leading Google Book Search library partners has arrived. The HathiTrust (www.hathitrust.org) is a collaboration of 25 research libraries already participating in Google Book Search to produce a shared digital repository for preservation and access to a curated collection. By mid-November, the HathiTrust Digital Library will have a full-featured, full-text search service for 4.3-5 million items. The searches will retrieve bibliographic citations and page references, including those for in-copyright books. Content will extend beyond the digitized copies of books returned to early library partners by Google. HathiTrust is pushing to acquire other digitized special collections from its members, as well as making arrangements for opening access to university press books.

Begun in October 2008, HathiTrust members currently include the 10 University of California system libraries, plus the California Digital Library, Indiana University, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, The Ohio State University, Penn State University, Purdue University, The University of Chicago, University of Illinois, University of Illinois at Chicago, The University of Iowa, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Virginia. The depository currently includes digitized volumes from the University of Michigan, University of California, Indiana University, and the University of Wisconsin."

http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/NewsBreaks/HathiTrust-Launching-FullText-Library-of-Books-57575.asp

Google Book Search? Try Google Library; CBS News, 8/27/09

CNet's Tom Krazit via CBS News; Google Book Search? Try Google Library:

Plan to Bring Millions of Books Online Raises Concerns over Privacy, Quality and Motive

"There's a sense among several of those planning to speak at Friday's conference that an Internet corporation--even one sworn to "do no evil"--does not necessarily share the same values and principles that librarians rabidly defend. And left unsaid, but by no means absent, is the growing scrutiny paid this year to Google's dominant position in the Internet search market and how that power squares with Google Books and the publishing industry...

Universities do have an alternative in the HathiTrust, a digital library project that counts UC Berkeley and the University of Michigan--also a close partner of Google's--among its partners. That service lacks the scope of what Google is potentially entitled to scan, but it curates the material in a fashion that's better suited to the needs of the academic community.

That's good, because at the moment, Google Book Search is almost laughably unusable for serious research, UC Berkeley's Nunberg said. For example, he pointed out that the Charles Dickens classic "A Tale of Two Cities" is listed in Google Book Search as having been published in 1800; Dickens was born in 1812.

Nunberg plans to speak out on the quality issues with Google Book Search, although he readily concedes that the product was not designed for the needs of academics and scholars. But that only underscores the point: if Google Book Search is the only way to obtain a digital copy of a book 100 years into the future, scholars will have to depend on it for research, he said...

"There's a lot of questions about how they will balance (their) mandate as a for-profit corporation and their mission to provide universal access to information," [ALA's Angela] Maycock said. If it really wants to make the controversy over this settlement go away, Google needs to embrace "the ethical framework that libraries operate under," she said."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/27/tech/cnettechnews/main5269257.shtml

University Libraries in Google Project to Offer Backup Digital Library - Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/13/08

University Libraries in Google Project to Offer Backup Digital Library:

"One of the most important functions of the project, say its leaders, who plan to unveil the giant library today, is to create a stable backup of the digital books should Google go bankrupt or lose interest in the book-searching business.

The project is called HathiTrust...

Because most of the millions of books are still under copyright protection, the libraries cannot offer the full text of the books to people off their campuses, though they can reveal details like how many pages of a given volume contain any passage that a user searches for...

Only about 16 percent of the books in HathiTrust—or about 327,000 volumes—are out of copyright so that their full text can be delivered to all readers...

So why call the project "Hathi" (pronounced hah-TEE)—the Hindi word for elephant?

"The name resonated really well because elephants remember, elephants are large, and elephants are strong," said Bradley C. Wheeler, chief information officer at Indiana University system. "
http://chronicle.com/free/2008/10/5061n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en