Authors To Defend Books From Being Digitised by Google

|PIC1|It has now been one year since Google unveiled plans to digitise the archives of five of the world's great libraries at Stanford, Michigan and Harvard universities, the New York Public Library and Oxford's Bodleian Library - by 2015.

A £110m dream of "organizing the world's information and making it more universally accessible and useful". Google repeatedly claims that their plan for e-libraries will raise awareness and sales of books.

In response to this, The Bodleian Library at Oxford University sidestepped the question of copyright infringement by giving Google access to 19th-century books only. But Harvard, another participant, plans to provide selected shelves of books, many of which are apparently still in copyright.

Therefore, a US writers' group is now suing the internet search giant Google, under the pretext that its plan to digitise major library book collections infringes author copyright. The Authors Guild has filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York seeking damages and an injunction against further infringements.

Google, who operate under a "don’t be evil" motto, has repeatedly claimed it is a force for good and a servant in virtually every area it operates. The company says it regretted the Authors Guild action, asked for more talks, and claimed its plans benefited writers.


'Brazen Violation'
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However it has temporarily stopped scanning copyrighted texts until November to allay concerns about the plan, after several groups complained about copyright violation. Google say they are offering publishers the opportunity to tell it what books it does not want included.

The action by the 86-year-old Authors Guild is part of a push by the organization to roll back efforts by Web sites to make the contents of books freely available online.

Google has said copyright holders who contact the company and ask for their books to be withheld from the project, will be respected. Only small portions of the books are shown unless the content owner gives permission to show more.

But critics say that moves the onus from Google to the writers.

"This is a plain and brazen violation of copyright law," Nick Taylor, president of the 8,000-member New York-based Authors Guild, said in a statement.

"(Authors), not Google, have the exclusive rights to... authorize such reproduction, distribution and display of their works," the guild's complaint says.


The Google Response

But Google said its project "directly benefits authors and publishers by increasing awareness of and sales of the books in the programme".

"Only small portions of the books are shown unless the content owner gives permission to show more," it added.

Furthermore, Times Online Reports that recent figures of young people in America, show that they are spending more time browsing the net than watching television. With the advent of lightweight, portable - and even flexible computer screens that allow people to read text, even in sunlight, there is a growing movement towards the sale of book content in a digitised form online, and maybe are hopeful that it will 'spawn a whole generation of book lovers and buyers'.

This could be potentially beneficial for book authors and publishers, however, is appears that they do not agree, and prefer to have their immediate future secured - an author who copyrights their paperback recieves loyalties for life plus 70 years - whilst holding out for further dividends from the digital boom later.


The Future?
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Following a similar suit with Agence France-Presse (AFP) earlier this year, Google was forced to remove copyrighted photographs from its Google News site. It is expected that to avoid a similar sitaution with the Author's Guild, Google will rejigg its library plans to exclude books under current copyright (Times Online). They could also perhaps move the onus away from the writer by changing the scheme from an "opt-out" to an "opt in" with the publishers.

Within Britain itself, legal action has also not been ruled out. The UK-based Publishers Association will be starting a website – www.googledebate.com – to canvass views from anybody with an opinion on the debate reports Times Online. The site asks: "is the Age of Search bringing exciting new opportunities for publishers, or is it the beginning of the end?"