Ten years ago, The Authors Guild and several authors filed a lawsuit against Google Inc. alleging copyright infringement through Google’s massive book-scanning project, in which it scanned tens of millions of books and made them searchable. Recently, the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in Google’s favor, finding that the project was fair use under copyright law.

In the latest episode of the legal-affairs podcast Lawyer 2 Lawyer, we discuss this landmark ruling and its implications for authors, publishers and the general public. Our guests for the program are three experts in copyright law, including one of the lawyers who represented The Authors Guild:

  • William H. Frankel is chair of the copyright group at Brinks Gilson & Lione in Chicago. His practice includes patent, trademark, copyright, trade secrets and unfair competition litigation in jury and non-jury cases; international intellectual property, litigation and counseling; and licensing. He has counseled clients in the evaluation, protection, procurement, and transfer of IP rights, including providing legal expertise in worldwide patent protection and the coordination of legal strategies in global IP disputes.
  • Kenneth D. Crews specializes in copyright law at Gipson Hoffman & Pancione in Los Angeles, serving the commercial and entertainment sectors, as well as nonprofit entities, individual authors and other creative talent. For more than 25 years, his research, policymaking, and teaching has centered on copyright issues of importance to education and research. He established and directed the nation’s first university-based copyright office at Indiana University, where he also held a tenured law professorship. He was later recruited to establish a similar office at Columbia University in New York, and he currently serves on the faculty of Columbia Law School.
  • Jeremy S. Goldman is with Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz in New York, where he represents companies and individuals in the media, entertainment, advertising and technology spaces in complex litigation involving copyright in the digital age, film and television contracts, trademarks and rights of publicity. He has litigated some of the most closely watched copyright and entertainment cases, including representing The Authors Guild in the Google Books and HathiTrust cases and Hasbro in a 2014 trial in Los Angeles over the motion picture rights to Dungeons & Dragons.

Listen above or at the Legal Talk Network. Never miss an episode by subscribing via the iTunes library or our RSS feed.

A special thanks to our show’s sponsor, Clio.

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.