WSJ.com: “The Supreme Court on Monday declined to intervene in a case examining whether Alphabet Inc.’s Google engaged in copyright infringement when it scanned millions of books and made them searchable online, a final blow to authors who sued the company. The justices, in a brief written order, said they won’t take up an appeal by the Authors Guild and individual writers who argued Google engaged in copyright infringement “on an epic scale.” Lower courts had sided with the company, ruling the search giant engaged in “fair use” of the writers’ works for its Google Books digital database, which allows individuals to search for specified terms in more than 20 million works and view excerpts of many of the books that appear in the search results…”

• See also EFF’s Case Closed: Supreme Court Lets Fair Use Ruling Stand in Google Books Litigation
• and Google Books: Great for Google – but What about Everyone Else?