Google subpoenas rivals in fight against copyright lawsuits

Google subpoenas rivals in fight against copyright lawsuits

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Cal.: Google said it is seeking documents from rivals Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon in order to fight copyright lawsuits over its online library project.

A spokesperson for the search giant said it is to subpoena the three companies for documents related to their book search projects. Documents requested include list of titles, copyright status, costs and how copyright owners would be affected. The company plans to use these to fight litigation over its alleged copyright violation.

Google's book scanning project came under fire when some authors complained that several books were being made available online raising the risk of unauthorized use besides denying royalty to the copyright owners. A group of authors and publishers then filed a lawsuit against the company charging it with making copies of books without the publisher's permission.

A similar service run successfully by Amazon requires publishers who want their books included in the site, to enroll and submit their books for sale from the site. The site offers prospective buyers a peek at the book's contents with the feature 'Search Inside'.

Google maintains that it shows no more than “snippets” of books, which does not amount to violating copyright laws. The petitioners Association of American Publishers, which filed the lawsuit against Google, said they took issues with Google on the way it copied entire libraries and did not bother to inform the copyright owners. Over the last two years since the project began, the scanning has covered titles from various libraries which include Harvard and Stanford universities.

Rivals Yahoo and Microsoft had similar plans, announced last year. They partnered an ambitions project called the Open Content Alliance which would offer access to books from the University of California and Britain's National Archives.

A spokesperson for the publishers' association added that copyright laws are clear that the burden of obtaining permission for copying works lies on the would-be copier – Google.

The subpoenaed documents and information would be kept confidential, Google promised, besides, access to them will be restricted by a court order.