Publishers Sue Google to Prevent Scanning of Copyrighted Works.

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Author: Carlson, Scott

The Association of American Publishers said last week that five of its members had filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit against Google because it is scanning books from top research libraries for the Google Library Project. The publishers' group is coordinating and paying for the lawsuit.

In their complaint, filed with the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, the McGraw-Hill Companies, Pearson Education, the Penguin Group, Simon & Schuster, and John Wiley & Sons charge that Google is infringing copyright to "further its own commercial purposes."

The publishers ask the court to forbid Google from reproducing their works and to require Google to delete or destroy records already scanned. The only payment the publishers ask is for their legal fees.

Another organization, the Authors Guild, and three writers filed a similar complaint last month (The Chronicle, September 30).

Google's Library Project, announced in December, involves Harvard and Stanford Universities, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and the University of Oxford, in England, as well as the New York Public Library. Michigan has been involved most deeply with the project, giving Google permission to scan all the volumes in its library.

Google plans to allow users to see the full texts of books that are in the public domain, but only snippets of works that are still under copyright, which can go back as far as 1923.

David Drummond, Google's vice president of corporate development, released a statement denouncing the lawsuit as "shortsighted." He said it "works counter to the interests of not just the world's readers, but also the world's authors and publishers."

He said that Google's project falls under copyright law's fair-use provision, that it would make books easier to find and buy, and that it would inevitably "increase the awareness and sales of books directly benefiting copyright holders."

Patricia Schroeder, president of the publishers' group, said that publishers had been taken aback when Google announced its library-scanning project late last year. She said the publishers held meetings with Google, in the spring and through the summer, repeatedly asking the company not to scan books under copyright.

For a while this summer, Google stopped scanning copyrighted books while the negotiations were going on. But then Google announced that it would resume scanning books under copyright.

"We don't seem to be able to get their attention," Ms. Schroeder said. "Instead, we get, 'This is for the global good,' and, 'This will be good for you, but you just don't get it.' We seemed to be talking past each other."

"The real fear is that if Google can do this, anyone can do this," she added. "The precedent is just terrifying."

Asked why the publishers did not also sue any of the universities involved, many of which are discussed in the complaint, Ms. Schroeder said: "Google is clearly the instigator. They are the driving force behind this."

James L. Hilton, interim university librarian and associate provost for academic, information, and instructional technology affairs at the University of Michigan, said he was disappointed by the lawsuit.

"We believe that this project has enormous benefit for humanity" in allowing people to search entire texts of obscure and long-out-of-print works through a computer, he said in a telephone interview last week from the Educause conference, in Orlando, Fla. "If you can't find it online, it won't be read."

"From a public-policy standpoint," he added, "I think it would be very unfortunate if a judge decided to shut this down."

"The real fear is that if Google can do this, anyone can do this. The precedent is just terrifying."

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By Scott Carlson