A ruling in a long-running copyright lawsuit that says Google Inc.’s book-scanning project is legal not only gives Google the right to pursue Google Books but also may allow others to build searchable data bases for film, television or music without fear of copyright infringement claims.

“It opens a door,” says Jonathan Reichman, a partner specializing in copyright litigation at Kenyon and Kenyon in New York. “It’s a classic situation in which the law is trying to keep up with technologies that didn’t exist when the copyright rules were written.”

Google Books has provided digital copies of more than 20 million books since 2004. The Authors Guild brought a class action suit in 2005, saying that Google’s service infringed the copyright of authors.

The November summary judgment in favor of Google says the book scanning is “transformative” and doesn’t violate copyright laws under the fair use doctrine. Judge Denny Chin, who now sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit but stayed with the district court case, said in his 30-page decision that Google Books “provides significant public benefits.” He wrote that “it advances the progress of the arts and sciences, while maintaining respectful consideration for the rights of authors and other creative individuals, and without adversely impacting the rights of copyright holders.”

While he focused on Google Books, Chin’s language and interpretation of “fair use” could be applied to other companies and other types of copyrighted material, lawyers say. “By upholding Google’s fair use defense, the court immunized and excused unpermitted copying on a massive scale,” said Aaron Moss, a partner who specializes in entertainment and intellectual property law at Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger in Los Angeles. “The reasoning in the opinion would apply equally to any other type of content, including multimedia.”

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