Publishers Throw the Book at Google

[DBlack]

Charging Copywright infringemnt, 5 major publishing firms have launched a lawsuit agains Google for their Google Library project. Google maintains that the books have to be completely scanned to make it possible for full text searching. Big publishing fears online catalogueing will take place, paving the way for wholesale sharing of entire books via search engines.

I think they both are right. So what gives? I really don't know with whom to side with on this one, but it's clear that the benefits of this technology are huge for us consumers of the wWW.

The Story.

[saraphen]

There ought to be a way to get reference material without making the whole text available. I hope they figure it out. Google or somebody else.

[Corals]

Originally Posted by saraphen

There ought to be a way to get reference material without making the whole text available. I hope they figure it out. Google or somebody else.

My understanding of it is that once the material is scanned and digitalised, you would not be able to read the whole book neither would you be able to download or print it, but rather, you would only be able to view a few sentences; the same way you would if you were looking up a word in a dictionary.

[Corals]

Microsoft joins book search plan

Microsoft has joined a Yahoo-backed effort to digitise the world's books and other works to make them searchable and accessible to anyone online.

The software giant said it would work with the Open Content Alliance (OCA), set up by the Internet Archive, to initially put 150,000 works online.

The move comes as Google faces growing legal pressure from publishers over its own global digital library plans.

Microsoft said it would initially focus on works already in the public domain.

This way, it hopes to avoid similar legal issues over copyright.

Google said in a statement that it welcomed the move to make more information accessible to anyone online.

Legal trouble

Earlier this month, the Association of American Publishers filed a lawsuit in New York claiming Google's Print Library Project plans would infringe their copyrights.

If we go and bring universal access to all human knowledge it will be remembered as one of the great things humankind has ever done
Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive
Google's project would involve digitising millions of works from Harvard, Stanford, and Michigan universities to make them searchable.

Once the texts were digitised, users would not be able to download or print the whole book, but would be able to view a few sentences from each.

Copyright holders have been given a deadline of 1 November if they do not want their books to be scanned.

Search plans

US libraries which have joined the separate OCA's library project include Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Virginia, and the University of Pittsburgh.

The OCA was set up by a group of digital archivists and is backed by technology firms Adobe and HP, as well as libraries and academia.

It aims to find ways of balancing publisher and author rights with global accessibility.

"It's interesting to see everyone jumping on the digital library bandwagon," said Doron Weber from the Sloan Foundation, part-funders of the Internet Archive which set up the OCA.

"Google's push has galvanized everyone else."

Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, said the OCA's digital library plans were ambitious.

"If we go and bring universal access to all human knowledge it will be remembered as one of the great things humankind has ever done," Mr Kahle said.

Microsoft said it was already liaising with publishers and libraries on ways to make more copyrighted works available for online searches.

A spokeswoman said the firm was still investigating different ways to do this, which could include charging to access content.

Microsoft said it would have a prototype of its library search service ready next year.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...gy/4377984.stm

Published: 2005/10/26 11:43:28 GMT

[Corals]

Amazon.com to Sell Individual Book Pages
Amazon.com Plans to Let Customers Buy Portions of a Book for Online Viewing
By HILLEL ITALIE
The Associated Press

NEW YORK - With its new Amazon Pages service, Amazon.com Inc. plans to let customers to buy portions of a book even just one page for online viewing. A second program, Amazon Upgrade, will offer full online access when a traditional text is purchased.

Both services are expected to begin next year.

"We see this as a win-win-win situation: good for readers, good for publishers and good for authors," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told The Associated Press on Thursday.

For Amazon Pages, Bezos said, the cost for most books would be a few cents per page, although readers would likely be charged more for specialized reference works. Under Amazon Upgrade, anybody purchasing a paper book could also look at the entire text online, at any time, for a "small" additional charge, Bezos said. For instance, a $20 book might cost an extra $1.99.

Copyright holders would determine whether the pages could be printed or downloaded.

"We feel strongly that copyright holders get to make these decisions," Bezos said.

The Amazon announcement came on the same day that Google Inc. began serving up the entire contents of books and government documents that aren't entangled in a copyright battle over how much material can be scanned and indexed from five major libraries.

The Authors Guild and five major publishers are suing to prevent Google from scanning copyrighted material in the libraries without explicit permission. Because it plans to show only snippets from copyrighted books, Google argues its scanning project constitutes "fair use" of the material.

"The Amazon programs are the way copyright is supposed to work," the Authors Guild's executive director, Paul Aiken, said Thursday. "You provide access to readers and some compensation flows back to rights holders. It seems like a positive development."

Amazon issued a statement of support from Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC, which owns Farrar, Straus & Giroux, St. Martin's Press and several other publishers.

"We look forward to working together with Amazon as they develop these innovative new programs to expand the market for digital content," said Holtzbrinck CEO John Sargent.

Meanwhile, Random House Inc. released a statement Thursday saying it will "work with online booksellers, search engines, entertainment portals and other appropriate vendors to offer the contents of its books to consumers for online viewing on a pay-per-page-view basis."

Random House, the country's largest general trade publisher, listed a number of "key components" for any deal, including that "Books will be available for full indexing, search and display" and "No downloading, printing or copying will be permitted."

Richard Sarnoff, president of the Random House corporate development group, said in an interview that the publisher had already been talking to a number of vendors, but expects Amazon to be the first to sell Random House books on a per-page basis.

Sarnoff was generally favorable to Amazon Pages "We think it's a great idea and hope it's implemented as brilliantly as it's intended" but said the publisher was concerned about Amazon Upgrade.

"We're worried about pricing. We will not participate on the basis of some small, incremental charge," he said. "We think digital text has real value and we're not interested in making it just this adjunct to the print product."

The new Amazon programs are an extension of the company's "Search Inside the Book," which lets users browse a book's contents for free. Over the summer, the company also launched Amazon Shorts, which offers brief, original fiction and nonfiction for 49 cents each.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wir...C-RSSFeeds0312

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I suppose this way, everyone is getting something back.

Still, if you are going to have to pay for say, a page, then surely you should have the right to download or print the page.

................
Meanwhile:
Google posts first books online

The first works scanned and put online as part of Google's controversial print project have been unveiled.

Included in this opening swathe are many 19th Century works of American literature and history.

The works were chosen because they are out of copyright and unaffected by legal action that led Google to briefly halt its digitisation project.

Groups representing authors and publishers say the project amounts to copyright infringement.

Legal row

Books about the US Civil War, government papers and the writings of Henry James are among the works donated by project participants for the first group of online works.

"Today we welcome the world to our library," said Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, in a statement.

"As educators we are inspired by the possibility of sharing these important works with people around the globe."

The entire text of these works is being put online by the search giant's digitisation project. The text will be searchable and users will be able to save images of pages.Read More

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4403388.stm