[Open-access] Please join the Brief of Digital Humanities and Law Scholars in Authors Guild v. Google (Appeal to the Second Circuit)

[Peter Murray-Rust]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Subject: Fwd: [noise at ischool] Please join the Brief of Digital Humanities
and Law Scholars in Authors Guild v. Google (Appeal to the Second Circuit)

-------- Original Message --------
From: Schultz, Jason <SchultzJ at exchange.law.nyu.edu>
Subject: [noise at ischool] Please join the Brief of Digital Humanities and
Law Scholars in Authors Guild v. Google (Appeal to the Second Circuit)
To: Noise <noise at ischool.berkeley.edu>

Hi Noise — if you or anyone else you know working on text-mining or
digital humanities more generally in interested in signing onto this
brief, let us know. To sign on, you must have some academic or scholarly
affiliation. Thanks. Jason
------------------------------------------
Jason M. Schultz
Associate Professor of Clinical Law
Director, Technology Law & Policy Clinic
Co-Director, Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy
NYU School of Law
http://ssrn.com/author=654538


Dear Colleagues,

We are writing to seek your support for our amicus brief in the Court of
Appeals in Authors Guild v. Google, Inc.

Most of you know all about this case and all about this brief. But for
those of you who want to know more, read on ...

Background

Since we started working on this project just over two years ago two
district courts and the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit have
rejected the Authors Guild's attacks on library digitization and the
legality of text-mining. We are confident that the Second Circuit will
uphold Judge Chin's decision last year where he rejected (on a motion
for summary judgement)  the Authors Guild's copyright infringement claim
against Google over its Google Book Search product.  The rulings in
Authors Guild v. Google and the parallel case of Authors Guild v.
Hathitrust are a critical moment in the fight to define fair use for the
Digital Humanities.

In Authors Guild v. Google, Judge Chin expressly based ruling in part on
the fact that "Google Books ... has transformed book text into data for
purposes of substantive research, including data mining and text mining
in new areas, thereby opening up new fields of research. Words in books
are being used in a way they have not been used before. Google Books has
created something new in the use of book text -- the frequency of words
and trends in their usage provide substantive information."

In his decision, Judge Chin cites the Brief of Digital Humanities and
Law Scholars as Amici Curiae that you and your colleagues signed. Chin
writes that "Google Books permits humanities scholars to analyze massive
amounts of data -- the literary record created by a collection of tens
of millions of books."

The Authors Guild is now appealing Judge Chin's decision (on this and
other grounds) and we would like your support in drafting a new brief
for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.  A different panel
of that same court has already upheld the decision in Authors Guild v.
Hathitrust. We believe that these cases will have a dramatic effect on
research in computer science to linguistics, history, literature and the
digital humanities.

Argument in a nutshell

According to the U.S. Constitution, the purpose of copyright is “To
promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”. Copyright law should
not be an obstacle to statistical and computational analysis of the
millions of books owned by university libraries. Copyright law has long
recognized the distinction between protecting an author’s original
expression and the public’s right to access the facts and ideas
contained within that expression. That distinction must be maintained in
the digital age so that library digitization, internet search and
related non-expressive uses of written works remain legal.

You can help preserve the balance of copyright law by joining our brief
as a signatory (we need your name and affiliation e.g. Associate
Professor, Jane Doe, Springfield University).

We need your name etc., by July 9, 2014. Please enter your details
directly via this online tool:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1QSA_fUSaRpw47wwRcXh0SXkZFx1NQ2NbjhBbfTrICnA/viewform?usp=send_form

Or, if you prefer, simply send email
matthewsag at gmail.com<mailto:matthewsag at gmail.com>.

Please feel free to share this invitation with other interested
academics and Phd students.

Thank you!

Matthew Jockers
Matthew Sag
Jason Schultz

Matthew Sag
Professor, Loyola University Chicago School of Law and Associate
Director for Intellectual Property of the Institute for Consumer
Antitrust Studies [contact<http://matthewsag.com/contact/>]
[twitter<https://twitter.com/matthewsag>]
[website<http://www.matthewsag.com/>] [ssrn working
papers<http://ssrn.com/author=461043>]


--
http://mitar.tnode.com/
https://twitter.com/mitar_m





-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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