AAP Sues Google Over Scan Plan

Microsoft joins new Open Content Alliance; will digitize 150K books The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has filed suit against Google over its program to scan library books. AAP officials said the lawsuit was filed “after lengthy discussions broke down” between the AAP and Google regarding what AAP insists is copyright infringement regarding the Google Print for Libraries Project. The suit seeks “a declaration by the court that Google commits infringement when it scans entire books covered by copyright” and a court order preventing scans without permission of the copyright owner.

The suit names five major publishers and members of the AAP as plaintiffs: the McGraw-Hill Companies, Pearson Education, Penguin Group (USA), Simon & Schuster, and John Wiley & Sons. The suit is being coordinated and funded by the AAP, after “an overwhelming vote” by the 20-member AAP board, and follows the Authors Guild suit against Google, which the AAP strongly supported (see News, LJ 10/15/05, p. 14ff.).

Google freeloading?

AAP president Patricia Schroeder said that even though “authors and publishers know how useful Google's search engine can be and think the Print Library could be an excellent resource, under its current plan, Google is seeking to make millions of dollars by freeloading on the talent and property of authors and publishers.”

That notion had Google representatives puzzled. In a visit to LJ, Google director of content Jim Gerber said his firm was hardly freeloading but spending millions to digitize books and host them, actually saving publishers the costs of digitizing their works themselves. In a meeting with Google, AAP proposed that Google use the ISBN system to identify works under copyright and secure permission from publishers and authors to scan these works, but “Google flatly rejected this reasonable proposal.”

Microsoft enters

The newly created Open Content Alliance (OCA), developed by Yahoo and others, now has Microsoft as a partner. Microsoft officials said MSN Book Search will cover the cost of digitizing the equivalent of 150,000 public domain books over the next year—about $5 million at the 10¢ per page estimated by the OCA.

Yahoo is covering the cost of digitizing up to 20,000 books, and, according to its agreement, the University of California has committed to contributing “1.5 million pages” of digitized content. How this would work as a business venture, however, remains unclear. Microsoft officials, like other OCA partners, instead call it a “test product” and a “strategic bet.” Also unclear is how useful and cost-effective an online collection of old public domain books might be to users who aren't researchers.

It is clear, however, that book publishers, outraged by Google's aggressive plans, have made a major stride in re­asserting control over their books in the digital realm. In a statement, Microsoft, which has been no corporate shrinking violet in the past, sounded notably cautious in saying its project would “clearly respect all copyrights.” That's part of why MSN Book Search, at least as announced, is much more modest in its aspirations than Google's scan plan.