Jeffrey Young, University-Press Group Raises Questions About Google's Library-Scanning Project, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 23, 2005 (accessible only to subscribers). Excerpt: 'Saying that Google's high-profile library project "appears to be built on a fundamental violation of the copyright act," the Association of American University Presses listed concerns and questions about the project on Friday in a six-page letter to Google's top lawyer. The complaint is one of a growing list of formal objections to Google's digital-library plans by publishing groups. The university-presses group, which represents 125 nonprofit scholarly publishers, posed 16 detailed questions about Google's project, which the company calls Google Print for Libraries....For copyrighted works, Google officials say that online search results will offer only short excerpts. But publishers say that even to scan those books could violate copyright. "Copyright means the right to make copies, period," said Peter Givler, the university-press group's executive director, in an interview. "Copyright law can seem pretty byzantine and technical and elaborate and complicated," said Mr. Givler, who wrote the letter, "but at its simplest, that's what it is. It's the right to make copies." The idea for Google's mammoth digital library "is enormously seductive," Mr. Givler says in the letter. But he complains that "Google asserts that it can make these copies without seeking permission as a fair use" under copyright. Such a "large-scale infringement," he writes, would have the potential of causing serious financial damage to the press group's members....Adam M. Smith, a senior business-product manager for Google who is working on the Google Print project, said the company is talking with as many publishers as it can...."I'm not a lawyer, so I can't speak to the specific legal issues," [Smith] said, when pressed on the legal questions raised by the university-press group. "We believe we're creating a product that is beneficial to publishers and to libraries -- that by allowing full-text search of the books that we would spur additional interest in books and in using books and in purchasing books in a way that will benefit all people that are interested in publishing generally."'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/23/2005 07:27:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
