AAUP Pressures Google Print

Can digitizing library material represent infringement?

By Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 7/15/2005

In a letter to Google, Association of American University Presses (AAUP) executive director Peter Givler wrote that it's time to come clean with publishers about Google Print for libraries, Google's ambitious plan to scan the collections of several major libraries (see News, LJ 1/05, p. 18ff.). Givler told LJ that he was disturbed to learn that, while Google had been soliciting publisher permission for Google Print for Publishers last year, publishers were not informed about the Google Print for Libraries program, even though it was in development.

"News of Google Print for Libraries came as a complete surprise," Givler wrote, adding that the "confusion" among publishers over Google's library plan has now "transformed it into mounting alarm and concern at a plan that appears to involve systematic infringement of copyright on a massive scale." Publishers worry that Google intends to copy entire works, including copyrighted works, without the copyright-holder's permission and claim ownership of those copies.

Days after Givler's letter surfaced in the press, Google senior business product manager Adam Smith addressed society publishers at the fourth annual Blackwell Publishing Executive Seminar, held June 3 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Smith did not address Givler's concern or Google's legal basis for copying library collections. Instead, he focused on the potential benefit for users seeking content and for publishers to generate revenue through the program.

Smith said that roughly 85 percent of the books being digitized from libraries are out-of-print, with many not yet out of copyright. By digitizing them, he said, Google is giving potential new revenue to publishers and new life to authors' works relegated to collecting dust on library shelves. He reiterated that publishers who did not wish to participate could simply opt out of the program. Books published before 1923 are out of copyright and in the public domain.

The Association of American Publishers also pressed Google for more information. Givler and other publishers were quick to acknowledge the potential for revenue from Google Print. They questioned, however, how the program would affect their business in the long term and expressed concern over Google's claim to ownership of the scans they make. Indeed, lawyers who commented on background to LJ wondered if large-scale copying by a commercial entity was unprecedented in U.S. copyright law. Further, they questioned whether Google's "opt-out" provision would satisfy the law, since it shifted the fair use burden from copiers to content owners.