Cite as 804 F.3d 87 (2nd Cir. 2015)
- C. Factor Three
The third statutory factor instructs us to consider “the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.” The clear implication of the third factor is that a finding of fair use is more likely when small amounts, or less important passages, are copied than when the copying is extensive, or encompasses the most important parts of the original.[1] The obvious reason for this lies in the relationship between the third and the fourth factors. The larger the amount, or the more important the part, of the original that is copied, the greater the likelihood that the secondary work might serve as an effectively competing substitute for the original, and might therefore diminish the original rights holder’s sales and profits.
(1) Search Function. The Google Books program has made a digital copy of the entirety of each of Plaintiffs’ books. Notwithstanding the reasonable implication of Factor Three that fair use is more likely to be favored by the copying of smaller, rather than larger, portions of the original, courts have rejected any categorical rule that a copying of the entirety cannot be a fair use.[2] Complete unchanged copying has repeatedly been found justified as fair use when the copying was reasonably appropriate to achieve the copier’s transformative purpose and was done in such a manner that it did not offer a competing substitute for the original.[3] The Supreme Court said in Campbell that “the extent of permissible copying varies with the purpose and character of the use” and characterized the relevant questions as whether “the amount and substantiality of the portion used … are reasonable in relation to the purpose of the copying,” Campbell, 510 U.S. at 586–587, 114 5.Ct. 1164, noting that the answer to that question will be affected by “the degree to which the [copying work] may serve as a market substitute for the original or potentially licensed derivatives,” id. at 587–588, 114 S.Ct. 1164 (finding that, in the case of a parodic song, “how much … is reasonable will depend, say, on the extent to which the song’s overriding purpose and character is to parody the original or, in contrast, the likelihood that the parody may serve as a market substitute for the original”).
In HathiTrust, our court concluded in its discussion of the third factor that “[b]ecause it was reasonably necessary for the [HathiTrust Digital Library] to make use of the entirety of the works in order to enable the full-text search function, we do not believe the copying was excessive.” 755 F.3d at 98. As with HathiTrust, not only is the copying of the totality of the original reasonably appropriate to Google’s transformative purpose, it is literally necessary to achieve that purpose. If Google copied less than the totality of the originals, its search function could not advise searchers reliably whether their searched term appears in a book (or how many times).
While Google makes an unauthorized digital copy of the entire book, it does not reveal that digital copy to the public. The
- ↑ See Harper & Row, 471 U.S. at 564–565, 105 S.Ct. 2218 (rejecting fair use defense for copying of only about 300 words, where the portion copied was deemed “the heart of the book”).
- ↑ Some copyright scholars have argued this position. See, e.g., Paul Goldstein, Copyright’s Commons, 29 Colum. J.L. & Arts 1, 5–6 (2005).
- ↑ See cases cited supra note 17; see also Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley Ltd., 448 F.3d 605, 613 (2d Cir.2006) (“[C]opying the entirety of a work is sometimes necessary to make a fair use of the [work].”).
