Google today prevailed in a long-running lawsuit over its book-scanning project when a New York judge tossed the case and ruled that the search giant's effort is fair use.

Scanning 20 million books, snippets of which are available online for research purposes, is fair use and not copyright infringement, Judge Denny Chin ruled Thursday.

Judge Chin found that Google's Library and Partner Projects offer a variety of benefits to researchers and libraries, as well as publishers and average readers.

"This has been a long road and we are absolutely delighted with today's judgment," Google said in a statement. "As we have long said Google Books is in compliance with copyright law and acts like a card catalog for the digital age giving users the ability to find books to buy or borrow."

With the Partner Program, publishers and authors can request that snippets of their books are added to Google Search in order to heighten awareness about their work.

It is the Library Project, however, that got Google into legal hot water. Over the years, Google has worked with several libraries to scan their collections and "like a card catalog, show users information about the book, and in many cases, a few snippets – a few sentences to display the search term in context," Google says on its website.

It did not secure permission from the copyright holders to scan those library books, however, prompting a 2004 lawsuit from the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Author's Guild.

Google announced a $125 million settlement in 2008, which would've created a registry of online books and allowed U.S. consumers and institutions to purchase access to the material. But the Justice Department didn't like it, and after some back and forth and a revised proposal, Judge Chin formally rejected the settlement in March 2011, and essentially ordered both sides to return to the table to negotiate another settlement agreement.

That did not happen. Last year, Judge Chin allowed class-action status for the case, but that decision was overturned by a higher court in July, which ordered Judge Chin to consider the fair use issues of the case. He did that, and ruled this week in favor of Google.

"The benefits of the Library Project are many," the judge wrote.

Not only does Google Books provide "a new and efficient way for readers and researchers to find books," he said, but it "has become an essential research tool, as it helps librarians identify and find research sources, it makes the process of interlibrary lending more efficient, and it facilitates finding and checking citations."

Judge Chin also argued that the project expands access to books to those in under-served communities or those who need assistive technologies to read. "Digitization facilitates the conversion of books to audio and tactile formats, increasing access for individuals with disabilities," he said.

"Google Books helps to preserve books and give them new life," he continued. "Finally, by helping readers and researchers identify books, Google Books benefits authors and publishers.

In considering the issue of fair use, Judge Chin said that "a key consideration is whether, as part of the inquiry into the first factor, the use of the copyrighted work is 'transformative.'"

"Google's use of the copyrighted works is highly transformative," he argued.

Displaying snippets of text is similar to search engines displaying thumbnails of photos, and "Google Books does not supersede or supplant books because it is not a tool to be used to read books," he said. Furthermore, Google does not make money from the books because it does not show ads on any of its book-scanning pages.

"Google does, of course, benefit commercially in the sense that users are drawn to the Google websites by the ability to search Google Books," he conceded. "While this is a consideration to be acknowledged in weighing all the factors, even assuming Google's principal motivation is profit, the fact is that Google Books serves several important educational purposes."

"Accordingly, I conclude that the first factor strongly favors a finding of fair use," he concluded.

For more, check out PCMag's guide on How to Borrow Ebooks.