Google Backs Off, for the Moment, on Copyrighted Material

In a statement on its blog Thursday, Google announced that its controversial Google Print program would cease scanning copyrighted material, at least until November.

After drawing fire from a number of publishing groups in the industry?most publicly from the Association of American University Publishers, which released, in May, an open letter blasting Google for its decision to include copyrighted material among the works it's aiming to make searchable online as part of its Google Print for Libraries program?Google is apparently trying to mend its shaky relationship with publishers.

Peter Givler, president of the AAUP, highlighted some of the extreme concerns among the constituents of his organization when he said, in the aforementioned letter, that Google's program is "built on a fundamental, broad-sweeping violation of Copyright Act and this large-scale infringement has the potential for serious financial damage to the members of AAUP."

Responding to the fears enunciated by Givler, presumably, Adam Smith, product manager for Google Print, wrote Thursday on the company's blog that Google recognizes "not everyone agrees" with its decision to scan copyrighted material and that, as such, "any and all copyright holders?both Google Print partners and non-partners?can tell us which books they'd prefer that we not scan if we find them in a library."

In order to allow publishers time to gather lists of the copyrighted titles they do not want featured in Google Print, the search engine company is putting a moratorium on scanning copyrighted material until November.

Stressing that Google Print will continue to scan works in the public domain, Smith told The Book Standard that the announcement came out of "an effort to really create a product that balances the needs of both our users and the publishers."

Still, not everyone in the industry sees the move as much of an olive branch. Patricia Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers, posted a response on the AAP website that said this latest effort "does nothing to relieve the publishing industry's concerns."

Schroeder goes on to say that "Google's procedure shifts the responsibility for preventing infringement to the copyright owner rather than the user, turning every principle of copyright law on its ear." In an interview with The Book Standard, she characterized Google's move as one that tries to "change the law so that anyone can copy anything" by putting the onus of preventing intellectual property theft on the shoulders of the rights holders.

As Schroeder sees it, Google's actions with Google Print open the door to copyright infringement across multiple mediums, ranging from movies to computer software. "What it really means," she says, "is creators aren't ever going to have any time to create; they're going to have to police this all the time. It's called 'game over' and you can do the same thing with movie libraries . . . and . . . I suppose, patents."

Smith maintains that Google is well within the bounds of the law. "The library project itself," he says, "is consistent with the principles under fair use." Smith also says that this latest move comes out of an open dialogue Google is continuing to have with publishers.

"What we were really allowing here is, in listening to our partners, providing them with an additional option to express their interest to exclude books from the program."

Schroeder doesn't see it this way at all. Noting that the AAP represents the majority opinion in the publishing industry, she says that her organization is most disappointed by Google's insistence on getting word of its moratorium out so quickly.

Schroeder also expressed disappointment about Google announcing its moratorium when it did, because the unilateral move seems to endanger agreements the AAP and Google had been working on together. In fact, Schroeder says a rough draft of a proposal addressing how Google would approach copyrighted material that was more amenable to publishers?and which was "efficient, quick and easy to implement"?was presented to Google Wednesday. The Thursday blog post seems to inhibit any chance of approaching such an agreement.

"We said we have this thing we're working on," Schroeder says, "but we need until early September to get it ready." She calls the draft delivered Wednesday a preview. "They said, 'It's not going to work,' and we're still a little perplexed as to why."