Google book-scanning project legal, says U.S. appeals court

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday that Google's massive effort to scan millions of books for an online library does not violate copyright law, rejecting claims from a group of authors that the project illegally deprives them of revenue.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York rejected infringement claims from the Authors Guild and several individual writers, and found that the project provides a public service without violating intellectual property law.

The authors sued Google, whose parent company is now named Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O, in 2005, a year after the project was launched. They claimed that the scanning illegally deprived them of revenue.

But Google argued that the effort would actually boost book sales by making it easier for readers to find works, while introducing them to books they might not otherwise have seen...