As an author and former academic, I use Google Books almost every day. It's become the primary reason I even bother exploring non-fiction books online, rather than looking up an article on the same subject. Today, a U.S circuit judge declared that Google provides enormous benefit to society and authors, and denied the Author's Guild's copyright suit to block the massive book-scanning project [
Source:
http://theurbanlink.net/2013/11/14/judge-permits-google-to-continue-to-make-books-relevant-online/