[open-science] Text mining and the Hathi Trust decision

[Vision, Todd J]

Hello all,

There was a landmark US court decision the other week regarding fair use of digitized library materials that grew out of a lawsuit between the HathiTrust and the Authors Guild: http://www.educause.edu/blogs/cheverij/hathitrust-decision-win-fair-use-and-use-technology

IANAL, but it was just brought to my attention that the ruling appears to be extremely favorable to the idea that many applications of text-mining would fall under the definition of fair use according to US law (which is notoriously murky about what does or doesn't constitute fair use).

The text of the ruling is here.  http://www.scribd.com/doc/109646807/The-Authors-Guild-Inc-et-al-v-Hathitrust-et-al-Opinion-and-OrderParticularly 

Pages 16, 21 and 22 discuss text-mining specifically.

cheers,
Todd