For Chin, “fair use” applies because Google allows readers to discover books they might not normally be able to find, but only allows them to read a small portion of these books—as opposed to, say, Napster, which made entire songs and albums available for free, Google merely whets consumers’ appetites. ”Google Books digitizes books and transforms expressive text into a comprehensive word index that helps readers, scholars, researchers, and others find books,” he wrote. “Google Books does not supersede or supplant books because it is not a tool to be used to read books. For Chin, this service isn’t just a service to publishers, it’s a service for humanity at large: ”In my view, Google Books provide significant public benefits. Indeed, all society benefits.”According to Chin, Google also benefits the books themselves by giving “new life” to “out-of-print and old books that have been forgotten in the bowels of libraries,” which is a gross.

Google defeats Author’s Guild in page-scanning suit