Based on reading the article (and no legal knowledge whatsoever), it would appear to depend entirely on who was doing it and why. If libraries were doing it so they could automatically subtitle the work and make it available to deaf viewers, then probably so. If you are doing it so you can hawk DVD versions on street corners for a buck apiece, likely not.
Well, that certainly. But also more. If it's legal to do this on an industrial scale with books, why not with movies or music?
I think there's some complicated reasoning in the decision, and I'm curious what it will mean in the bigger picture.
Why can't I (or a company) take any analog media and transform them to digital. I'm adding transformative functionality, after all. Digital search capabilities, for example.
Not for resale of the work, of course, but for my own vast database that I sell research access to.
And even if the work has already been translated to a digital format (DVD or CD for example), the decision seems to say there's still nothing wrong with me transferring from analog to digital. If there was, point 4 would be circular as the decision says.
So it seems like this says Google could go digitize a bunch of LPs, VHS tapes, and even celluloid film for similar projects. Google Film. Google Albums. Etc.
I don't really think this holds up, but I can't pin down why it wouldn't.
Bonus thought- what if I took software and made it run on a new platform. Is that also fair use under this decision? Wouldn't that also be transformative use?
