Google, the world's largest Internet search engine, is being sued by two organizations, the Author's Guild and the Association of American Publishers over the company's scanning and distribution of copywrited works through its Google Library program without the permission of the authors.
The Authors Guild, the largest society of published writers in the United States, filed a suit against Google in September, according to an Author's Guild press release which cited "massive copyright infringement." In October, the Association of American Publishers also filed suit.
Google is working with the university libraries of Stanford, Harvard and the University of Michigan as well as the New York Public Library and Bodleian Library in Oxford, England, to make views of book pages or even whole books available for free on Google Print Library, according to the Author's Guild press release. Google briefly stopped scanning copyrighted books in response to the publishers' protests but resumed scanning Nov. 1, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Tram Nguyen, a full-time graduate student at AU, said she uses Google Print because libraries do not always have what students need, plus it eliminates competing with other students for the same book.
"Google Print Library makes things available and accessible," she said. "I'm at Tryst right now and could have the world's library at my fingertips. You could work at cafes, parks or virtually anywhere."
The Author's Guild lawsuit said Google should be required to obtain copyright permission from authors in order to reproduce and distribute copies for its own commercial use.
"The people who cry that information wants to be free don't address dignity or aspect of justice," Nick Taylor, president of The Authors Guild, said in an editorial in The Washington Post. "They're more interested in ease of assembly. The alphabet ought to be free, most certainly, but the people who painstakingly arrange it into books deserve to be paid for their work."
Google said in a statement it regrets that the lawsuit would want "to stop a program that will make books and the information within them more discoverable to the world."
The statement said authors and publishers could exclude books from the program if they do not want certain material included and Google will protect copyright holders by limiting their works to bibliographic information and only a few sentences of text. The company also has said it will direct readers who want to read more to online booksellers and libraries.
Washington College of Law Professor Peter Jaszi said he is puzzled by the lawsuits. He said he considers Google Print Library "an innovation in the cultural sector" and something lawful because of the Fair Use doctrine in the U.S. copyright law.
The Fair Use doctrine states that when one person or company copies another company's work in ways that add value for users without taking away anything from the copyright owner's market, then that activity should be permitted rather than prevented, he said.
Google should win this lawsuit, Jaszi said, and he would encourage his students to use Google Library.
John Hyman, professor of literature at AU, said he would not be reluctant to direct students to the site.
"I'd remind them that they are obligated as researchers to make that the beginning of their work and not the end," Hyman said.
