racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Five publishers are suing Google for the scanning of print material for the Search giant’s online library project.

The suit seeks a declaration that the Web search leader commits
infringement when it scans entire books covered by copyright without
permission of the copyright owner.

But according to Google,

Creating an easy-to-use index of books is fair use under copyright law
and supports the purpose of copyright: to increase the awareness and
sales of books, directly benefiting copyright holders …
…
Supporters of the Google Print project say the scanning of the full
text of the books is necessary to create a searchable catalog of the
books located within the five libraries’ collections. Google says it
has no plans to make full copies of copyrighted works available without
their owners’ permission.

Google is considered to be the de facto technology for searching the Internet, and even other things (i.e. with Google Desktop, etc.).  I think it would have been advantageous to the publishers if Google had coverage of text in existing printed material.  Yes, this could be abused, but I’m pretty sure Google has learned its lesson from the issue over its caching web pages.  And the company would surely have the technology to control access over the scanned copyrighted material.

Heck, I’d even think Google has enough resources to just buy off the rights to the material!  Or would they?

All five of the publishers named as plaintiffs in the latest lawsuit
have participated in Google’s publisher program, according to the
company.

Why the sudden turnaround?

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