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 < back to full column list < back to academic authors column list < back to textbook authors column list Google's plan based on ability to 'steal' content by Steve Gillen As reported earlier in the TAA newsletter, Google, the world's largest search engine for internet-accessible information, has undertaken a project it calls Google Print with the objective of adding the contents of the world's printed books to its database of searchable content. By any measure, this would be a praiseworthy contribution to scholarship - an information equalizer making access to the richest concentrations of recorded knowledge available from any corner of the planet where internet access can be had.
There is just one problem. A substantial part of Google's plan is based on its ability to steal content from the authors and publishers of hundreds of thousands of copyrighted works. Several research libraries have been encouraged by Google to make a pact with the devil by agreeing to provide Google with access to their entire collections (including works still under copyright protection) for the purpose of scanning them into a Google database so that Google can automatically and efficiently serve up selected excerpts from those works in response to on-line search inquiries. I say that Google is "stealing" content because, although it has agreements with the libraries to gain access to the works in their collections, Google's plan is to make an electronic copy of the entirety of each of these works without the consent of their respective copyright owners, each of whom owns, to the exclusion of everyone else, the right to authorize the making of copies of his/her work.. These "intermediate" copies will not be distributed - Google will limit searcher's access to a few brief snippets from each work - but they are copies nonetheless and require the consent of the copyright owner unless the unauthorized use is otherwise excused. The excuse offered up by Google is that its use is a legitimate exercise of the fair use right - the right, statutorily recognized in the United States, to copy without the consent of the copyright owner limited portions of a copyrighted work for purposes such as criticism, comment, scholarship, or research, provided that the use is a fair use. The legal arguments are somewhat technical -- the fair use determination is made on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the specific circumstances of each unauthorized use and measuring them against four factors set forth in the Copyright Act - and the interested parties have squared off to make them. On September 20, 2005, the Authors Guild filed on behalf of its author-members and those similarly situated a class action suit against Google in US District Court in the Southern District of New York alleging that the Google Library Project will infringe their copyrights. On October 19, 2005, a group of publishers filed suit making similar claims against Google in the same court. Google, with a market capitalization currently estimated at in excess of $100 billion, has deep pockets. The authors have deep convictions. The print publishers have a vital stake in not being cut out of a segment of the market for their works that has eroded their traditional base. The courts will tell us who is right . . . but not in internet time.
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