Open Access News

Many AAP members are participating in the Google Print Publishers' Program, which lets them offer books for copying, specify how much of a book can be revealed to searchers and earn a share of revenue from ads shown by Google against search results. But AAP President Patricia Schroeder said publishers were angry about the Library Program. "Part of why they were so surprised that they went ahead with the library program is that every one of the plaintiffs is one of their partners in Google Print," Schroeder said. "It's a funny way to treat your partners."...[The Google Library project] was presented as a fait accompli [to publishers], and Google already had been scanning books in the collection of the University of Michigan for nearly a year. Jim Gerber, Google director of content partnerships, recently told internetnews.com that the search Goliath had to wait until all the contracts with libraries were signed before it could reveal the project to publishers....In response to publishers' complaints, Google added two new features to the Library Project. Publishers can give Google a list of books they want added to their accounts if Google scanned them from the library; or they can give the company a list of books they didn't want scanned....Google claims that scanning and indexing the books is covered by fair use guidelines; it's taken to describing the Library Project as "creating a digital card catalog." "If that's all they're doing, they only need to copy the bibliographic material. If they want to make it searchable, it's not longer a card catalog," Schroeder responded.

In an e-mailed statement, David Drummond, Google's vice president for corporate development and general counsel, said, "Google Print is an historic effort to make millions of books easier for people to find and buy. "Creating an easy to use index of books is fair use under copyright law and supports the purpose of copyright: to increase the awareness and sales of books directly benefiting copyright holders. This short-sighted attempt to block Google Print works counter to the interests of not just the world's readers, but also the world's authors and publishers." Schroeder said, "I keep being blown away by how they seem to think they have the right to take everything from everybody, because it's going to be so good for you. 'You don't get it, but fine, we're going to take it.'" She said that regardless of whether it might, for example, be good for someone in Bangladesh to be able to search through a book, "We have the right to decide these things." The AAP and the other publishing organizations have been criticized for "old media thinking," but Schroeder said the organization will continue to work with the Open Content Alliance, which has similar plans to build a searchable index of works in print.