IT Lawsuits and New Laws

In 2005, the Authors Guild of New York, representing 8,000 authors, sued Google for copyright infringement, claming that scanning books and putting them online forced the authors to lose control of their published works.

"The authors' works are contained in certain public and university libraries and have not been licensed for commercial use," claimed the Guild in one of several publisher class-actions lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court.  “By reproducing for itself a copy of those works that are not in the public domain, Google is engaging in massive copyright infringement. It has infringed, and continues to infringe, the electronic rights of the copyright holders of those works."

Google's defense was that it was making publicly available works in libraries to the entire world through the "fair use" doctrine. Google's plan was to scan all the books in the New York Public Library and those in the University of Harvard, Oxford, Michigan and Stanford, and make portions available online through its Google Book Search portal. This included books in the public domain as well as books with active copyrights. Google also said authors could opt out if they didn't want their work scanned.

Google thought they had come to a settlement with the Authors Guild in October of 2008, but the resulting agreement has drawn the attention of the US Department of Justice. Apparently, it violates antitrust law—allowing book publishers to restrict price competition and Google to essentially control "orphaned" digital library products forever. Stay tuned for the outcome.

The music industry circled the wagons in 2003, when the members of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed the first of 20,000 lawsuits and threats with online music file swappers and their customers. Music-sharing site Napster was forced to close its doors, but others have appeared to replace it. The RIAA currently has a website for accused pirates can go to pay their fines with a credit card. Their tactics have changed over the years, but they are still prosecuting people at an individual level, especially university students of late.

The Associated Press (AP), meanwhile, recently won a lawsuit against an online news site they claimed had misappropriated their stories. While the facts of the stories themselves are not copyrighted, apparently the timing of their release is. Believe it or not, the Supreme Court validated this claim in 1918 in favor of AP, and the precedent continues online.

In the last decade, legislation such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has provided additional protections to copyright, patent and trademark holders in the new technological age. The speed of access and duplication as well as the quantity and delivery methods of information available on the internet, however, pose a formidable threat. A new generation of tech-savvy legislators, law enforcement agents, and judges will be needed to pass, enforce, and interpret meaningful legislation to stay ahead of the curve in this hyperspeed age of change. Stay tuned!