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The Author's Guild blog claimed that they gleaned enough information in a two minute Google search to find one of the authors in the list of "orphaned works" that HathiTrust was going to make available to the students and faculty at the participating universities. I'm guessing that author will soon become a principle litigant in the suit, since he's the only one who has clear standing.
I believe that this suit is really about the limits of fair use, and possibly as another salvo in the campaign against passing an orphan works provision in the copyright laws. It might be a smart move for HathiTrust to back away from releasing "orphaned works" and concentrating on verifying the copyright status of post 1923 works which did not have their copyright renewed.
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