Authors Guild sues Google

Reuters wrote:

The Authors Guild, a U.S. writers advocacy group, sued Google Inc. (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) on Tuesday in federal court, alleging that the Web search leader's bid to digitize the book collections of major libraries infringes on individual author's copyrights.

Full Story

Seems like google is in all kinds of trouble lately....

EDIT:
And here's Googles reply:

Google wrote:

Google Print and the Authors Guild

9/20/2005 09:04:00 PM

Posted by Susan Wojcicki, Vice President, Product Management

Today we learned that the Authors Guild filed a lawsuit to try to stop Google Print. We regret that this group chose to sue us over a program that will make millions of books more discoverable to the world -- especially since any copyright holder can exclude their books from the program. What’s more, many of Google Print’s chief beneficiaries will be authors whose backlist, out of print and lightly marketed new titles will be suggested to countless readers who wouldn’t have found them otherwise.

Let's be clear: Google doesn’t show even a single page to users who find copyrighted books through this program (unless the copyright holder gives us permission to show more). At most we show only a brief snippet of text where their search term appears, along with basic bibliographic information and several links to online booksellers and libraries. [...]

Link

i agree with the authors guild, surely this is like itunes selling every bit of music in the world unless the composer/whatever opts out.  It should be an opt in process.  if Steven king wants his books on google he should opt in not have to opt out after they're up.

Yeah, google should have kept it down to public domain works and those that authors have agreed to have scanned.

From what I read the vast magority of the works *are* public domain... They are old documents and such.

GUYZ DO NO EVIL KEKEKEKEKEKEKE ^--^!!!!!!111`1`1`

I can see the RIAA and the MPAA following suit (No Pun Intended) the minute that Google Video starts catching movies and Google Music (I made it up) starts listing .mp3s of bootleged CDs

This Project has been on hold for a few months, now we know why.

orangie wrote:

Cybermagellan wrote:I can see the RIAA and the MPAA following suit (No Pun Intended) the minute that Google Video starts catching movies and Google Music (I made it up) starts listing .mp3s of bootleged CDs

..when have you seen people running to B&N's just to get a book,

About as often as people running to the grocery to get food. B&N does not just put random books on the shelf. It is a big deal I bet to get your books on one of their shelves.

I too think that authors should be opted out from the get go.

How many of you actually read ebooks? I can not stand reading books off the PC.

harumscarum wrote:

How many of you actually read ebooks? I can not stand reading books off the PC.

I read e-books all the time on the computer and it doesnt bother me one bit. hopefuly someone will come up with a better format to read ebooks than PDF. ZINO took a swing at it with magazines though the expirience isnt enjoyable.

orangie wrote:

nooooo , I meant Running into B&N, literally.. I am a frequent B&N goer, more amazon.com now thought

I suppose you mean besides the Harry Potter shtick.

I belong to a lot of forums and mailing lists and everyone seems to be backing Google on this, I just have one question.  If it was Microsoft digitizing these books and making them available, would everyone be backing them?

harumscarum wrote:

How many of you actually read ebooks? I can not stand reading books off the PC.

I LOVE reading books on the PC.  The trick is to use a Tablet PC.  When the screen is in Portrait mode, you can see the entire page at once at a decent size.  It's a much more "book-like" experience.

It also doesn't hurt to use something like Microsoft Reader that supports ClearType & variable font sizes.

Or to use a Tablet PC that has a rocker switch on the side so you can flip pages back & forth using the same hand that's holding the PC.

Newspapers & magazines are a bit more problematic, though as I find myself having to zoom in & out a lot on some of them (New York Times for example).

I haven't tried downloading the newly-available electronic edition of Playboy yet, so I don't know how annoying the centerfold will be on a Tablet.  (Magazine gatefolds are really annoying in the Zinio reader.)  Most of the other content should look fine though.  LOL

I think Google is doing "the right thing". What's wrong with indexing all the books ever written (to include copyrighted works). If they are not showing the contents of the works, then what's the harm?

Everyone benefits, the general population of the planet benefits because now they will be exposed to books, etc. they may have never heard of when doing Internet searches or doing research. The copyright holders benefit from having the additional exposure to their works (what copyright holder doesn't want people to find their work, and ultimately pay them to read it). It's a win-win situation.

For example, the other day I was looking for a book I read many years ago in high school (part of english class) and all I could remember were some passages from it (partial quotes and such, I couldn't remember the book title or author). I Internet searched on the partial text, which resulted in a website that had some additional passages, but not the book title or author. From what I found I searched some more, which led to another website, and I eventually found the book title and author. What a pain!

Rather than do the "Internet search run around", having to wade through multiple adhoc websites, etc., I was left wondering why the book itself doesn't come up as a hit in the initial search. The only way this will happen is if someone indexes all the books, etc. I applaud Google for taking this step to enrich the world.

 

rcme wrote:

If they are not showing the contents of the works, then what's the harm?

But they are showing contents of their work, even if it's a paragraph, or even if it's one sentence. If Google was going to highlight a word in a paragraph, then why does Google have the right to show that text?

This tool should be for public domain only. Or Google will have to have contracts with publishers or something.

harumscarum wrote:

How many of you actually read ebooks? I can not stand reading books off the PC.

I read eBooks on my PPC all the time. In the last couple years, a majority of what I have read has probably been eBooks.

I prefer MSN Reader, but have found Adobe Reader 2.0 isn't that bad.
It let's me check out eBooks from the county library without actually making a trip there.
Also don't have to worry about late fees because the eBook just expires.

Harlequin wrote:

rcme wrote: If they are not showing the contents of the works, then what's the harm?

But they are showing contents of their work, even if it's a paragraph, or even if it's one sentence. If Google was going to highlight a word in a paragraph, then why does Google have the right to show that text?

This tool should be for public domain only. Or Google will have to have contracts with publishers or something.

Google says they will show only a "snippet" of text surrounding the search term. I think this is "fair use", and pretty much a requirement to establish context for the search term, especially if the text being searched shows up in multiple books.

I would think that the copyright owners would want this anyway, to ensure the person searching finds the book they were looking for, so the proper copyright holder gets compensated if book is eventually purchased. People will be upset if they search, find a book, and then find out it was the wrong one only after they purchase it.

I agree that indexing "all content known to man" should ultimately be in the public domain, but I don't see the LOC stepping up, or any public group, or even any other search engines for that matter (where's MSN Search?)

Better yet, why don't MSN Search and Google (and anyone else) work on this as a joint project, indexing all the content known to man, to better all mankind... Ya, I thought so...

rcme wrote:

Google says they will show only a "snippet" of text surrounding the search term. I think this is "fair use", and pretty much a requirement to establish context for the search term, especially if the text being searched shows up in multiple books.

Maybe it is just me...

But I don't go on the Internet to find snippets of information. This about this...what would happen if they did that with web pages...so all you got was...

"Install Visual Basic on Windows"


When you searched for the questions if you could install Visual Basic on WindowsXP Home? That's not a problem really except what if your living depended on it?

I think Google Print...if it does searching should have the content indexed but refer you to the book that has that as a form of Metadata, not show content...not show snippets. Hell Google could even open a book store depending on how popular it was.

orangie wrote:

Cybermagellan wrote: I can see the RIAA and the MPAA following suit (No Pun Intended) the minute that Google Video starts catching movies and Google Music (I made it up) starts listing .mp3s of bootleged CDs

Google Video doesn't catch copyrighted videos.

Yes it does. The default search setting doesn't find them.

Just like in the "Print" it only shows few shots from the video along with the copyrighted transcription.

Karim wrote:

harumscarum wrote:How many of you actually read ebooks? I can not stand reading books off the PC.

I haven't tried downloading the newly-available electronic edition of Playboy yet, so I don't know how annoying the centerfold will be on a Tablet.  (Magazine gatefolds are really annoying in the Zinio reader.)  Most of the other content should look fine though.  LOL

haha. I have not found a way to expense a tablet yet so maybe I am missing out. I am in front of an LCD all day so being able to stare at a book instead is much more enjoyable.