Google battles over books
By Stephanie Hodge
Oct. 27, 2005 9:00 p.m.
The battle between copyright holders and technology companies
continues as more copyright infringement lawsuits were filed last
week against Google’s new digital library program, Google
Print.
The Association of American Publishers, representing five
leading publishing companies, filed a copyright infringement suit
against Google Print to stop the program’s progress, just a
month after a similar suit was filed by the Authors Guild.
Google announced its plans to digitize these collections 10
months ago. Shortly after, Yahoo! announced that University of
California libraries would be working with the Open Content
Alliance on a similar project.
Google Print, a project aimed to digitize a collection of books
online, is made up of two components: the Print Library Project and
the Print Publisher Program.
Though the controversial Print Library Project will only show
portions of copyrighted pages, publishers are upset that entire
books will be scanned into the system, which they claim is a
violation of copyright laws.
The site uses the Google Print homepage to link searches to book
titles. Pages that contain relevant information will be available
from copyrighted titles and public domain.
Those titles that are in the public domain are available for
users to search through the entire work, page by page, but are not
available for printing or downloading.
Each entry will also provide links to where books can be
purchased and to local library holdings.
Google supports its project, claiming it falls under fair use in
U.S. copyright law, which allows excerpts to be published without
consent.
Sections 107 and 108 of Title 17 of the Copyright Act establish
cases in which copyrighted material may be used under the
“fair use” clause, namely for criticism, comment, news
reporting, teaching, scholarship and research, according to the
U.S. Copyright Web site.
The OCA project was designed to avoid such troubles, only
including books never copyrighted or part of the public domain, and
copyrighted publications with expressed permission for use, said
Jennifer Colvin, a spokesperson for the UC Office of the
President.
Google insists its project is legitimate, saying it is necessary
to have full copies scanned into the system for research and
indexing purposes.
Many students say they are excited about texts moving onto the
Internet.
“It will make my research easier, but will probably
decrease the time I actually spend in the library,” said
Catherine Brewer, a third-year history and political science
student.
Brewer said she will look into the Google site because of
previous positive experiences with Google Publisher, but she is
concerned about the issues facing the company.
“It’s upsetting that they are getting into
trouble,” Brewer said. “It seems like they are trying
to offer a wide variety of materials that could be useful for my
own research.”
Google Print will host portions of collections from Stanford,
Harvard, Oxford, the University of Michigan and The New York Public
Library.
Google halted scanning in August to give copyright holders time
to opt out. It is scheduled to resume Nov. 1.
Although it is standard practice to contact a company before
using its copyrighted material, Google has challenged the norm by
instating a policy in which publishers and copyright holders must
contact it to opt out of the project.
OCA, whose project includes digital scans of books from UC
libraries, has not sparked the same concern among publishers and
copyright holders that the larger-scale Google Print faces.
“The biggest difference between the two (projects) is the
copyright issue,” Colvin said.
Unlike Google Print, UC materials on the Yahoo! site will be
unrestricted, available for print or PDF download.
“Getting the books out of the library and online makes the
information easily accessible to everyone,” Colvin said.
Some professors are also excited about the launch of digital
libraries.
“The more we make available our work and the work of
others, the better it is,” said UCLA history professor
Teofilo Ruiz, who has offered his own materials to be included
online.
Some authors and publishers say they are worried that putting
texts online will ultimately decrease their profits, but Ruiz is
doubtful.
“There will always be a market for (printed) books,”
he said.
Digital libraries could also serve as an alternative source for
reading materials, substantially lowering course reader prices.
“I hope to put a great deal of material on a protected Web
site for my students,” Ruiz said.
