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<b>Bonhams:</b> MANDELSHTAM, OSIP. 1891-1938. Autograph Manuscript, 2 pp, [Petersburg,] January 1913, entitled

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Controversy Surrounds Google Print For Libraries - By Michael Stillman Sample of a Google Print for Libraries search result from the Google website. By Michael Stillman Back in December 2004, the search engine company Google announced a massive project to digitize old books. The project, named "Google Print for Libraries," involved scanning collections from five libraries, the University of Michigan, Stanford, Harvard, Oxford, and the New York Public Library. As many as two million old books are to be scanned during this process. The full text of these books would then be made available to the public online. Rare old books, virtually unobtainable by anyone but scholars with access to rare book collections, would become available to everyone. A typical student living in North Dakota or East Timor could have access formerly reserved to great scholars. What could possibly be wrong with such a wondrous development? Well, the biggest issue that comes to mind is copyrights. Book publishers own copyrights to many works, and they are probably about as excited by the prospect of people viewing their books for free as music publishers are happy about people downloading their music free. Not a whole lot. Google also announced a similar program for publishers. Google will upload copies of newer books to their database, and allow searchers to view snippets from these books. However, snippets are all you see. If you want to read the entire book, you have to buy it, and Google provides links to where to buy those books. It's great advertising for the publishers. Even more importantly, the publishers have to volunteer to have their books posted within the Google Print for Publishers system. No controversy here. If you don't want you books posted, don't volunteer. They won't show up. However, Google Print for Libraries is not based on permission. Google is simply scanning those old books it chooses. These books fall into two categories: those that are clearly old enough so that all copyrights have expired, and those which either are or may still be under copyright protection. It's hard to argue about the former. Apparently Google regards books published in the U.S. before 1923 or internationally before 1900 to be clearly out of copyright. However, some of the material within the collections being scanned is more recent than this, and it seems Google intends to scan some of these works as well. We understand that they have voiced a willingness to eliminate material a copyright owner requests be removed, but this requires an affirmative step by that owner, who may not be aware it has works being copied. It is the use of still copyrighted material that had led to protests, most notably by the Association of American University Presses, but others such as the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers as well. The ALPSP recently called on Google to "...cease unlicensed digitisation of copyright materials with immediate effect..."
Controversy Surrounds Google Print For Libraries - By Michael Stillman none Google has set up barriers similar to those provided with Google Print for Publishers for viewing these still under copyright works. Searchers could never access more than a snippet at a time. Presumably, small snippets would fall within the limits of the "fair use" legal doctrine. We won't attempt to explain this vague legal concept which sometimes allows portions of copyrighted material to be copied, but here's an example. If you publish the line "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" on your website, no one is going to be able to successfully sue you. Post the entire book Gone With The Wind on your site and expect to see lawyers at your front door. There are a number of "fair use" exceptions to copyright law, such as ones that involve students and educational institutions, but the most notable one here is the exception for small quotes from a larger piece. However, there is no fixed number of words, or fixed percentage of a book, which can be fairly copied before you slip over the edge of infringement. It's one of those vague borders that no one can definitely define. However, we can clearly say that you are likely to be able to get away with copying a larger amount of text from, say, War and Peace than Goodnight Moon. This is not because Goodnight Moon is unquestionably the more popular book, but because it contains much less text in total. Google rightly points out that what they are doing can help the copyright holders. Learning about long-forgotten books may renew interest in them, and with renewed interest can come renewed sales. However, that really isn't relevant. If a copyright holder does not wants its material copied, that is their prerogative, no matter how shortsighted it might be. The real question is whether what Google is doing is a violation of those copyrights, and at least at this point, the answer is not clear. Publishing short snippets of a work would seem to be well within the bounds of fair use. However, what Google is doing (or proposing to do) is copy entire texts. And technically, they may be making entire texts available for public viewing. Of course you could never view it all at once, and the complexity of doing enough Google searches to reveal the entire text of a book through dozen-word snippets is probably comparable to counting all of the stars in the sky, or all of the unsold books posted on ABE. It is essentially impossible. Nonetheless, it is theoretically possible. Then there are issues such as the publishers' concern that someone might hack Google's database and read the entire text of a book. Why they would go to this trouble rather than just purchase a used copy is not clear, but the logic employed by hackers is not one that most of us understand. There may also be issues that Google is using these books for commercial purposes. Greater leniency to copying is afforded educational institutions and not-for-profits than a commercial enterprise like Google, though it must be noted that Google tends to build wonderful services and then worry about how to make money from them later. It is a refreshing oddity. This should be an intriguing debate to watch. It is another very interesting case pitting the public's right to access and share information via the internet against the creators' right to control and profit from their work. Of course, this dispute has been far more visible in the fields of music and film, but it applies to books too.
Controversy Surrounds Google Print For Libraries - By Michael Stillman none Page 3 Now it is important to point out that Google is not copying the latest Harry Potter book or anything like it. It is more likely to involve a 1930 book that has been out of print for 75 years, the author long dead, the monetary prospects for whoever now holds the rights infinitesimal. I have been a great fan of Google since the last millennium, when I stumbled across the then obscure search engine and found it worked better than the search powerhouses of the day. Google has an outstanding record of providing useful services and conducting their business in a most ethical manner. Google Print for Libraries promises to bring a wealth of information never before available to all of us. It is a wonderful public service. I just hope that Google is able to go forward with this important mission without being sidetracked by the understandable concerns of the copyright holders.

Controversy Surrounds Google Print For Libraries

- By Michael Stillman

Sample of a Google Print for Libraries search result from the Google website.

By Michael Stillman

Back in December 2004, the search engine company Google announced a massive project to digitize old books. The project, named "Google Print for Libraries," involved scanning collections from five libraries, the University of Michigan, Stanford, Harvard, Oxford, and the New York Public Library. As many as two million old books are to be scanned during this process. The full text of these books would then be made available to the public online. Rare old books, virtually unobtainable by anyone but scholars with access to rare book collections, would become available to everyone. A typical student living in North Dakota or East Timor could have access formerly reserved to great scholars.

What could possibly be wrong with such a wondrous development? Well, the biggest issue that comes to mind is copyrights. Book publishers own copyrights to many works, and they are probably about as excited by the prospect of people viewing their books for free as music publishers are happy about people downloading their music free. Not a whole lot.

Google also announced a similar program for publishers. Google will upload copies of newer books to their database, and allow searchers to view snippets from these books. However, snippets are all you see. If you want to read the entire book, you have to buy it, and Google provides links to where to buy those books. It's great advertising for the publishers. Even more importantly, the publishers have to volunteer to have their books posted within the Google Print for Publishers system. No controversy here. If you don't want you books posted, don't volunteer. They won't show up.

However, Google Print for Libraries is not based on permission. Google is simply scanning those old books it chooses. These books fall into two categories: those that are clearly old enough so that all copyrights have expired, and those which either are or may still be under copyright protection. It's hard to argue about the former. Apparently Google regards books published in the U.S. before 1923 or internationally before 1900 to be clearly out of copyright. However, some of the material within the collections being scanned is more recent than this, and it seems Google intends to scan some of these works as well. We understand that they have voiced a willingness to eliminate material a copyright owner requests be removed, but this requires an affirmative step by that owner, who may not be aware it has works being copied. It is the use of still copyrighted material that had led to protests, most notably by the Association of American University Presses, but others such as the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers as well. The ALPSP recently called on Google to "...cease unlicensed digitisation of copyright materials with immediate effect..."

Controversy Surrounds Google Print For Libraries

- By Michael Stillman

none

Google has set up barriers similar to those provided with Google Print for Publishers for viewing these still under copyright works. Searchers could never access more than a snippet at a time. Presumably, small snippets would fall within the limits of the "fair use" legal doctrine. We won't attempt to explain this vague legal concept which sometimes allows portions of copyrighted material to be copied, but here's an example. If you publish the line "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" on your website, no one is going to be able to successfully sue you. Post the entire book Gone With The Wind on your site and expect to see lawyers at your front door. There are a number of "fair use" exceptions to copyright law, such as ones that involve students and educational institutions, but the most notable one here is the exception for small quotes from a larger piece. However, there is no fixed number of words, or fixed percentage of a book, which can be fairly copied before you slip over the edge of infringement. It's one of those vague borders that no one can definitely define. However, we can clearly say that you are likely to be able to get away with copying a larger amount of text from, say, War and Peace than Goodnight Moon. This is not because Goodnight Moon is unquestionably the more popular book, but because it contains much less text in total.

Google rightly points out that what they are doing can help the copyright holders. Learning about long-forgotten books may renew interest in them, and with renewed interest can come renewed sales. However, that really isn't relevant. If a copyright holder does not wants its material copied, that is their prerogative, no matter how shortsighted it might be. The real question is whether what Google is doing is a violation of those copyrights, and at least at this point, the answer is not clear.

Publishing short snippets of a work would seem to be well within the bounds of fair use. However, what Google is doing (or proposing to do) is copy entire texts. And technically, they may be making entire texts available for public viewing. Of course you could never view it all at once, and the complexity of doing enough Google searches to reveal the entire text of a book through dozen-word snippets is probably comparable to counting all of the stars in the sky, or all of the unsold books posted on ABE. It is essentially impossible. Nonetheless, it is theoretically possible. Then there are issues such as the publishers' concern that someone might hack Google's database and read the entire text of a book. Why they would go to this trouble rather than just purchase a used copy is not clear, but the logic employed by hackers is not one that most of us understand. There may also be issues that Google is using these books for commercial purposes. Greater leniency to copying is afforded educational institutions and not-for-profits than a commercial enterprise like Google, though it must be noted that Google tends to build wonderful services and then worry about how to make money from them later. It is a refreshing oddity.

This should be an intriguing debate to watch. It is another very interesting case pitting the public's right to access and share information via the internet against the creators' right to control and profit from their work. Of course, this dispute has been far more visible in the fields of music and film, but it applies to books too.

Controversy Surrounds Google Print For Libraries

- By Michael Stillman

none

Page 3
Now it is important to point out that Google is not copying the latest Harry Potter book or anything like it. It is more likely to involve a 1930 book that has been out of print for 75 years, the author long dead, the monetary prospects for whoever now holds the rights infinitesimal. I have been a great fan of Google since the last millennium, when I stumbled across the then obscure search engine and found it worked better than the search powerhouses of the day. Google has an outstanding record of providing useful services and conducting their business in a most ethical manner. Google Print for Libraries promises to bring a wealth of information never before available to all of us. It is a wonderful public service. I just hope that Google is able to go forward with this important mission without being sidetracked by the understandable concerns of the copyright holders.