EFF has released "EFF Urges Appeals Court to Keep Protecting Fair Use."
Here's an excerpt:
In this latest appeal, the Authors Guild (and its supporters) claim that fair use is being unjustly expanded, portraying Judge Chin's ruling and other recent court opinions as some kind of fair-use creep, stretching beyond the original intent of the doctrine. Specifically, the Guild argues that the first of the four statutory fair use factors—the purpose of the use, which asks whether the use of the copyrighted material is transformative and/or non-commercial—weighs against Google. The Authors Guild and its amici insist that a use cannot be transformative if it doesn't add new creative expression to the pre-existing work. But as Judge Chin so rightly recognized, a use can be transformative if serves a new and distinct purpose.
Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"