Top publishers sue Google for book scanning

Top publishers sue Google for book scanning

Google's cherished plans to index the world's best books online, better known as Google Print Library Project, were challenged by five renowned publishers who filed a suit against the renowned web-portal claiming that it was wrong to scan the entire text of copyrighted books without any authorization.

The publishers want a ruling to be passed which declares Google's act as a violation of the copyright act.

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McGraw-Hill, Pearson Plc's Pearson Education and Penguin Group (USA) units, Viacom Incorporated's Simon & Schuster and John Wiley & Sons Incorporated were the five petitioners who filed the suit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Patricia Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers lambasted the concept saying, “If Google can make ... copies, then anyone can.”

According to Schroeder, scanning full text is not needed for what Google claims is just going to be an online catalogue. This suit will help in stopping digital duplication of books by one and all, feels Schroeder, a former US congresswoman from Colorado.

Legal experts are of the view that this clash between Google and the publishing industry is another in the conflicts occurring in digital reproduction of media, music, movies and now even books.

The bone of contention here is the rights of publishers and the public's interest, as avid book readers will get a nice opportunity to access parts of their favourite books if Google's ideas were to come into effect.

Defending Google's plans, their lawyer David Drummond pointed out that creating an easy-to-use index of books is fair use under copyright law.” He further added that this would only help the publishers as it would publicize the books and this could definitely lead to increase in the book sales.

Taking a dig at the crusaders against Google, he said the petitioners are failing to look at the bigger picture, which will benefit both readers and the authors.

Those supporting Google's project are also of the view that only complete scanning of the book will result in the formation of a comprehensive catalogue.

Further, Google made it clear that it does not have any intentions of reproducing the entire text of copyrighted books without the publisher's consent.

In September, the Authors Guild and US writers Herbert Mitgang, Betty Miles and Daniel Hoffman also lodged a complaint against Google on similar lines.

Google already runs a similar program with the key academic, technical and trade publishers, which permit readers to hunt for text of copyrighted books on publisher-controlled web pages.