On Thursday, Google and five publishers settled a long-standing legal battle over whether scanning university-library books and using snippets in search results can be done without the permission of copyright holders. While the agreement lets Google continue its work, both sides deliberately avoided tackling the issue at the heart of the conflict: What does fair use mean in the digital age?
Fair Use an exception to the copyright law that gives authors exclusive rights over their creative works. In passing the limitation, Congress tried to balance the rights of copyright holders with the need of academia
