cmyr
10-13-2006, 04:41 AM
Publishers suing Google in copyright dispute
By MEGAN TWOHEY
Posted: Oct. 12, 2006
The University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Wisconsin Historical Society announced Thursday that they are making nearly 500,000 historical books and documents available for a new search engine that aims to do with books what Google has done for Web sites.
Google is to create digital copies of the texts and make them available for search and download at www.books.google.com. In exchange, the university and the historical society are to get digital copies of their own.
"We're thrilled to be working with them," Google spokeswoman Megan Lamb said. "We think it's going to add a tremendous amount of historical documents and materials to Google Book Search."
With a combined collection of 7.2 million volumes, the university and the historical society are ranked 11th in North America, according to the Association of Research Libraries. They see Google Book Search as a way to preserve and expand access to their texts, said Edward Van Gemert, interim director of the UW-Madison library system.
But in striking the agreement with Google, the university and the historical society are entering a controversial online frontier.
Publishers suing Google
Major publishing companies are suing Google over the new search engine. They said the company was breaking the law by reproducing and exchanging copyrighted texts that libraries handed over.
None of the books or documents offered up by UW-Madison and the historical society is copyrighted; having been published before 1923, they are all in the public domain. But Van Gemert said the university might make copyrighted books available down the line.
"We may bring in copyright material," Van Gemert said. "Google feels very strongly that the operations they've set up in Google Book Search are lawful, and we believe it to be true."
The Association of American Publishers disagreed.
"There's nothing in the law that allows libraries to authorize third parties to make complete copies of copyrighted books," said Allan Adler, vice president of legal and governmental affairs for the association, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of The McGraw-Hill Cos. Inc., Pearson Education Inc., Penguin Group (USA) Inc., Simon & Schuster Inc. and John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Van Gemert said UW-Madison and the historical society began discussing a partnership with Google in the spring.
The company is working with Harvard University, the University of Michigan, the New York Public Library, Oxford University, Stanford University, the University of California System and, most recently, Complutense University in Madrid, the largest university library in Spain. Some of these libraries have made their entire collections available.
UW-Madison has offered histories of medicine and engineering, patents and discoveries, genealogical materials, state documents, decorative art, maps and sheet music.
The documents will be removed for copying in phases over the next six years and will be gone for only "short periods of time," Van Gemert said. Google and university officials have yet to determine which documents will be removed and when.
After the procedures are under way, the university is to decide whether to turn over its copyrighted texts.
"This is our first step into mass digitization," Van Gemert said. "We want to make sure that our operations are well established before we make a decision about bringing in copyrighted material."
Google aims to protect copyright
Google has established a system that it said honored copyright protections.
A browser of Google Book Search can view and download the complete text of the available public-domain books. For books in the search service that are protected by copyright, users get only a basic background, such as the book's title and the author's name, a few lines related to their search and information about where they can buy or borrow a book.
"Users just get basic information that falls within fair use," Lamb said.
The legal doctrine of "fair use" allows a company to display small portions of copyrighted work.
Google said publishers or authors would be excluded if they inform the company that they didn't want their books digitized.
"Our goal is to help users find more books," Lamb said. "It's a good thing for libraries and users and publishers."
Adler said copyright law puts the onus on Google to secure permission from authors and publishers.
He said it was wrong to focus on the snippets of information that are posted online. Google, he said, simply doesn't have the right to make digital copies of entire books without permission.
From the Oct. 13, 2006 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By MEGAN TWOHEY
Posted: Oct. 12, 2006
The University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Wisconsin Historical Society announced Thursday that they are making nearly 500,000 historical books and documents available for a new search engine that aims to do with books what Google has done for Web sites.
Google is to create digital copies of the texts and make them available for search and download at www.books.google.com. In exchange, the university and the historical society are to get digital copies of their own.
"We're thrilled to be working with them," Google spokeswoman Megan Lamb said. "We think it's going to add a tremendous amount of historical documents and materials to Google Book Search."
With a combined collection of 7.2 million volumes, the university and the historical society are ranked 11th in North America, according to the Association of Research Libraries. They see Google Book Search as a way to preserve and expand access to their texts, said Edward Van Gemert, interim director of the UW-Madison library system.
But in striking the agreement with Google, the university and the historical society are entering a controversial online frontier.
Publishers suing Google
Major publishing companies are suing Google over the new search engine. They said the company was breaking the law by reproducing and exchanging copyrighted texts that libraries handed over.
None of the books or documents offered up by UW-Madison and the historical society is copyrighted; having been published before 1923, they are all in the public domain. But Van Gemert said the university might make copyrighted books available down the line.
"We may bring in copyright material," Van Gemert said. "Google feels very strongly that the operations they've set up in Google Book Search are lawful, and we believe it to be true."
The Association of American Publishers disagreed.
"There's nothing in the law that allows libraries to authorize third parties to make complete copies of copyrighted books," said Allan Adler, vice president of legal and governmental affairs for the association, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of The McGraw-Hill Cos. Inc., Pearson Education Inc., Penguin Group (USA) Inc., Simon & Schuster Inc. and John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Van Gemert said UW-Madison and the historical society began discussing a partnership with Google in the spring.
The company is working with Harvard University, the University of Michigan, the New York Public Library, Oxford University, Stanford University, the University of California System and, most recently, Complutense University in Madrid, the largest university library in Spain. Some of these libraries have made their entire collections available.
UW-Madison has offered histories of medicine and engineering, patents and discoveries, genealogical materials, state documents, decorative art, maps and sheet music.
The documents will be removed for copying in phases over the next six years and will be gone for only "short periods of time," Van Gemert said. Google and university officials have yet to determine which documents will be removed and when.
After the procedures are under way, the university is to decide whether to turn over its copyrighted texts.
"This is our first step into mass digitization," Van Gemert said. "We want to make sure that our operations are well established before we make a decision about bringing in copyrighted material."
Google aims to protect copyright
Google has established a system that it said honored copyright protections.
A browser of Google Book Search can view and download the complete text of the available public-domain books. For books in the search service that are protected by copyright, users get only a basic background, such as the book's title and the author's name, a few lines related to their search and information about where they can buy or borrow a book.
"Users just get basic information that falls within fair use," Lamb said.
The legal doctrine of "fair use" allows a company to display small portions of copyrighted work.
Google said publishers or authors would be excluded if they inform the company that they didn't want their books digitized.
"Our goal is to help users find more books," Lamb said. "It's a good thing for libraries and users and publishers."
Adler said copyright law puts the onus on Google to secure permission from authors and publishers.
He said it was wrong to focus on the snippets of information that are posted online. Google, he said, simply doesn't have the right to make digital copies of entire books without permission.
From the Oct. 13, 2006 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel