Open Access News

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) today announced the filing of a lawsuit against Google over its plans to digitally copy and distribute copyrighted works without permission of the copyright owners. The lawsuit was filed only after lengthy discussions broke down between AAP and Google’s top management regarding the copyright infringement implications of the Google Print Library Project. The suit, which seeks a declaration by the court that Google commits infringement when it scans entire books covered by copyright and a court order preventing it from doing so without permission of the copyright owner, was filed on behalf of five major publisher members of AAP: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Pearson Education, Penguin Group (USA), Simon & Schuster and John Wiley & Sons. The suit, which is being coordinated and funded by AAP, has the strong backing of the publishing industry and was filed following an overwhelming vote of support by the 20-member AAP Board which is elected by, and represents, the Association’s more than 300 member publishing houses. “The publishing industry is united behind this lawsuit against Google and united in the fight to defend their rights,” said AAP President and former Colorado Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder. “While authors and publishers know how useful Google's search engine can be and think the Print Library could be an excellent resource, the bottom line is that under its current plan Google is seeking to make millions of dollars by freeloading on the talent and property of authors and publishers."...Over the objections voiced by the publishers and in the face of a lawsuit filed earlier by the Authors Guild on behalf of its 8,000 members, Google has indicated its intention to go forward with the unauthorized copying of copyrighted works beginning on November 1. As a way of accomplishing the legal use of copyrighted works in the Print Library Project, AAP proposed to Google that they utilize the well-known ISBN numbering system to identify works under copyright and secure permission from publishers and authors to scan these works. Since the inception of the ISBN system in 1967, a unique ISBN number has been placed on every book, identifying each book and linking it to a specific publisher. Google flatly rejected this reasonable proposal. Noting the existence of new online search initiatives that respect the rights of creators, such as the “Open Content Alliance” involving Yahoo, Hewlett-Packard, Adobe and the Internet Archive, Mrs. Schroeder said: “If Google can scan every book in the English language, surely they can utilize ISBNs. By rejecting the reasonable ISBN solution, Google left our members no choice but to file this suit.” As a twelve-term Member of Congress, Mrs. Schroeder served as the Ranking Member on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property. Mrs. Schroeder noted that while “Google Print Library could help many authors get more exposure and maybe even sell more books, authors and publishers should not be asked to waive their long-held rights so that Google can profit from this venture.”

(PS: Note the key concession that authors and publishers may benefit from Google's project. Apart from the use of ISBN's, the issues in the publisher suit are the same as the issues in the author suit, which I examined in the October 2 SOAN. The new suit will generate a lot of news coverage, but I'll try to blog only the stories and analysis that say something new.)

Google's response appeared on the company blog (October 19). It's written by David Drummond, Google's General Counsel and VP for Corporate Development. Excerpt:

We've been asked recently why we're so determined to pursue Google Print, even though it has drawn industry opposition in the form of two lawsuits, the most recent coming today from several members of the American Association of Publishers. The answer is that this program, which will make millions of books easier for everyone in the world to find, is crucial to our company's mission. We're dedicated to helping the world find information, and there's too much information in books that cannot yet be found online. We think you should be able to search through every word of every book ever written, and come away with a list of relevant books to buy or find at your local library. We aim to make that happen, but to do so we'll need to build and maintain an index containing all this information. It's no surprise that this idea makes some publishers nervous, even though they can easily remove their books from the program at any time. The history of technology is replete with advances that first met wide opposition, later found wide acceptance, and finally were widely regarded as having been inevitable all along. In 1982, for instance, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America famously told a Congressional panel that "the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone." But Sony, makers of the original Betamax, stood its ground, the Supreme Court ruled that copying a TV show to watch it later was legal, and today videotapes and DVDs produce the lion's share of the film industry's revenue. We expect Google Print will follow a similar storyline. We believe that our product is legal (see Eric Schmidt's recent op-ed), that the courts will vindicate this position, and that the industry will come to embrace Google Print's considerable benefits. Even today, despite its lawsuit, the AAP itself recognizes this potential. The Google Print Library Program, AAP president Pat Schroeder said this morning, "could help many authors get more exposure and maybe even sell more books.” We look forward to the day that the program's opponents marvel at the fact that they actually tried to stop an innovation that, by making books as easy to find as web pages, brought their works to the attention of a vast new global audience.