Judge rules online archive's book service violated copyright
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A federal judge has sided with four publishers who sued an online archive over its unauthorized scanning of millions of copyrighted works and offering them for free to the public. Judge John G. Koeltl of U.S. District Court in Manhattan ruled that the Internet Archive was producing "derivative" works that required permission of the copyright holder. The Archive was not transforming the books in question into something new, but simply scanning them and lending them as ebooks from its web site. "An ebook recast from a print book is a paradigmatic example of a derivative work," Koeltl wrote. The Archive, which announced it would appeal Friday's decision, has said its actions were protected by fair use laws and has long had a broader mission of making information widely available, a common factor in legal cases involving online copyright. "Libraries are more than the customer service departments for corpo...