Publishers protest Google library project

updated 4:30 p.m. ET May 24, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO - A group of academic publishers called Google Inc.’s plan to scan millions of library books into its Internet search engine index a troubling financial threat to its membership.

The Association of American University Presses said in a letter to Google that the online search engine’s library project “appears to involve systematic infringement of copyright on a massive scale.”

The association, which represents 125 nonprofit publishers of academic journals and scholarly books, asked Google to respond to a list of 16 questions seeking more information about how the company plans to protect copyrights.

Two unidentified publishers already asked Google to withhold its copyrighted material from the scanners, but the company hasn’t complied with the requests, Peter Givler, the executive director for the New York-based trade group, wrote in the letter that was sent last Friday.

Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., said in a statement Monday that it offers protections to copyright holders. For example, the company said that for books still in copyright, users will only see bibliographic information and a few sentences of text.

“Although we believe there are many business advantages for publishers to participate in Google Print, they may opt out, and their books scanned in libraries will not be displayed to Google users,” the company said.

“We continue to maintain an active dialogue with all of our publishing partners participating in Google Print and we encourage any publishers to contact us directly with their questions and comments.”

The association of nonprofit publishers is upset because Google has indicated it will scan copyright-protected books from three university libraries — Harvard, Michigan and Stanford.

Those three universities also operate publishing arms represented by the group complaining about Google’s 5-month-old “Libraries for Print” project. That means the chances of the association suing Google are “extremely remote,” Givler said in an interview Monday.

Still, Givler said the association is very worried about Google’s scanning project.

“The more we talked about it with our lawyers, the more questions bubbled up,” he said. “And so far Google hasn’t provided us with any good answers.”

Google also is scanning books stored in the New York Public Library and Oxford in England, but those two libraries so far are only providing Google with “public domain” works — material no longer protected by copyrights.

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