Google's library under fire

2005-11-18 12:39

New York - Google Inc is creating a digital library that will help people all over the world discover books, but publishers and authors say the internet search engine is committing massive copyright infringement.

The argument - dubbed "The Battle Over Books" - saw strong words traded in a panel discussion at the New York public library on Thursday. The panel may be a preview for an upcoming "Google Book Search" court battle.

Google is "appropriating material they don't own for a commercial enterprise," said Nick Taylor, president of the United States author's guild. "However altruistic, lofty and wonderful, it's a commercial enterprise."

Earlier this year, the authors guild and the Association of American publishers (AAP) sued Google over its book search project. The two groups claim Google is scanning copyrighted work without permission.

Lots of confusion

Under the project, millions of copyrighted books from three major university libraries - Harvard, Stanford and Michigan - will be indexed on the internet unless the copyright holder has notified Google about which volumes should be excluded.

Two other libraries, Oxford University and the New York public library, will contribute only out-of-copyright materials.

David Drummond, Google's vice-president of corporate development, said there was a lot a confusion about what his company was doing.

According to Drummond, Google is not trying to harm authors or publishers. When people use the Google Book Search, they will only be able to see snippets of the publication, not the whole book.

"The purpose of this programme is to help people find (books) - to help people discover them," said Drummond. "We believe very strongly that this is fair use under copyright. This is all about discovery."

Google's adversaries are not buying that claim.

"The court will find that it's not in fair use," said Allan Adler, AAP's vice-president for legal affairs. "Why couldn't we license this to Google?"

Better ideas could be penalised

Stanford law professor, Lawrence Lessig, said there were limits to the monopoly publishers and authors hold over their books.

"If you control everything then we will get less innovation and development," said Lessig.

Worse yet, Lessig said, if either one of these groups settle with Google, the company that comes along with a better idea will have to pay a penalty tax for being creative.

Lessig said Google's efforts merely represented an "index for the 21st century" and those suing the company just wanted a piece of the profit pie.

"It's all this debate is about," he said, warning that "we don't have until the 22nd century to solve this problem."

- AP