I have been touting the wonderful world of Google books for a few years.  I was originally interested in the subject when it came up in a master’s law class I was taking, discussing the copyright implications. I regularly use Google Books to search for quotes and books for my own articles, a long with helping a few of my client’s get their works published on Google for promotional reasons.

The argument against Google scanning all of the world’s books, making a digital copy, and placing them online publically, was pressing the bounds of “fair use.” “Fair use” in copyright is when you allow people to browse (look at it in a bookstore or library) or sight information from a copyrighted work.

The fair use to browse a book isn’t that big of a deal in a library or bookstore, because you flip the pages never really intending to read or use the copyrighted work, only to check it out.  An online book becomes more susceptible to being read cover to cover, thus cheating the authors out of their monetary gain because the book was not sold.  Google had previously placed a certain number of restrictions on the use of browsing, most notably limiting the number of pages you could view.  But, never the less the publishers of the books thought that there was a real loss of revenue, and they sued Google in 2005.

The second part, of “sighting information” was the more interesting issue.  With the lawsuits being brought against Google as a part of browsing a book and loosing revenue, there was a side challenge against sighting work.  If Google or other venders were not allowed a certain amount of fair use of copyrighted work, the whole academic world would come to a stand still, because the publishers would have literally protected their authors work to the level that no one would have been able to sight or quote another’s work with out permission.  Currently, anyone can sight another’s work, quoting the authors copyrighted material to support or challenge a position, and this is protected under “fair use.”  If it was removed, authors, especially in academia or journalism would have to get permission to print a quoted statement.  If you as the author were against the use of your work, or wanted to prevent criticism, you would simply not allow your work to be quoted.  The removal of fair use would shatter the way our copyright law and intellectual growth are achieved.

Luckily, Google outsmarted the publishers.  Google fought to create honest and transparent measures that would allow for “fair use” along with the proper promotion of books, management of sales, and protections of copyrights.  Today, Google announced that they had come to what they call a “historic” settlement that the company said clears the way for online book publishing” (1).

“The owner of the most popular Internet search engine said today’s agreement will enable it to expand the Google Book program to include millions of copyrighted and out-of-print books, allow users to buy them and provide free access from U.S. libraries.

“The tremendous wealth of knowledge that lies within the books of the world will now be at their fingertips,” Google co- founder Sergey Brin said today in a statement, calling the accord “historic” (2)

This agreement was not cheap, $125 million will be used to “create the registry, provide compensation and cover legal fees, according to the company(Google) (3).”

Among the important benefits to higher education are: (4)
•  Free full text access at public libraries around the country
•  Free preview and ability to either find the book at a local library or through a consumer purchase;
•  A first-ever database of both in-copyright and out-of-copyright (public domain) works on which scholars can conduct advanced research (known as the “the research corpus”).
•  Enabling the sharing of public domain works among scholars, students and institutions.
•  Institutional subscriptions providing access to in-copyright, out-of-print books;
•  Working copies of partner libraries’ contributed works for searching and web services complementary to Google’s;
•  Accommodated services for persons with print disabilities - making it possible for persons with print disabilities to view or have text read with the use of reader technology;
•  Digital copies of works digitized by Google provided to the partner libraries for long term preservation purposes.

By Jon Burgess.  Copyright 10/28/08

(1),(2),(3) - Google Settles Scanning Suits, Clears Way for Online Publishing, By Susan Decker and Erik Larson, Blomberg.com, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aRLa5npN4Dj4&