New Suit Filed Against Google

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) filed a lawsuit against Google on Tuesday for the search engine’s practice of digitally scanning copyrighted works from several libraries, including Harvard’s, without the publisher’s permission.

The AAP’s filing is the second lawsuit this fall against Google and its Print Library Project, which scans volumes at Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford University, Oxford University, and the New York Public Library. The Authors Guild, a society of published authors, also filed a copyright lawsuit last month.

With its lawsuit, the AAP is seeking a declaratory judgment from the court about the interpretation of copyright law.

“The copyright laws say that you cannot go into a library and make a full copy of someone’s work without their permission,” said AAP President and CEO Patricia S. Schroeder.

For its Print Library Project and related Print Publisher Program, Google is scanning entire works to create an index from which users can find relevant books based on their search terms. Users will have access to snippets of texts from books still under copyright and the entire text of those in the public domain.

Last month, Google suspended the scanning of books under copyright until Nov. 1 to allow publishers time to opt out of the program if they choose. Google has continued to scan books in the public domain.

And the company said it remains committed to the goals of the project.

“We’re dedicated to helping the world find information, and there’s too much information in books that cannot yet be found online,” David Drummond, general counsel and vice president of corporate development, wrote on Google’s corporate blog Wednesday.

HUL, which is not a party to the lawsuits, supports Google’s interpretation of copyright law and will continue with the project, Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the University Library Sidney Verba ’53 wrote in a statement.

“We believe that the Google Library Project, which is creating a revolutionary new information-location tool to find materials available in libraries, will greatly benefit scholarship, teaching, and the general public’s access to books and information,” he wrote.

Schroeder said that the AAP had been in talks with Google to pursue various means for Google to receive the permission of publishers and authors before copying their work.

Among the options proposed by the AAP was a system similar to the Open Content Alliance, an internet archive partnered with the search engine Yahoo! that allows users access only to works in the public domain and those for which they received publishers’ permission, said Schroeder.

“We thought [Google was] listening to us, but apparently not,” said Schroeder.

Schroeder said that Google’s project will benefit users and publishers alike, so long as it receives permission to scan the books. But she also mentioned the financial windfall Google may receive from the project.

“Google has a wonderful way of spinning this, saying that it is doing it for the publisher and the writer’s own good,” she said. “They leave out the part that...this allows them to sell millions of dollars of advertisement.”

A spokesman for Simon & Schuster, one of five major publishers on whose behalf AAP filed its lawsuit, said Google’s current practice of scanning books without permission constitutes a violation of copyright law.

“At the very basic level, we feel that it is simply wrong for Google to put any of our books online without the permission of the creator. This is a violation of our constitutional protected copyright,” Simon & Schuster spokesman Adam Rothberg said.

But Drummond defended the legality of Google’s practices.

“We believe that our product is legal...that the courts will vindicate this position, and that the industry will come to embrace Google Print’s considerable benefits,” Drummond wrote on the blog.

A Google spokesman could not be reached for comment yesterday.

The AAP has more than 300 member publishing houses, including the Harvard University Press. The lawsuit was filed after it was approved by a 20-member board elected by AAP members.