Google Pauses in Book Scanning Project

Google is taking a 3-month break in its scanning of copyrighted books to allow the holders of the copyright to register their protest and keep their material out of the company’s searchable database. However, the company says it will continue to make such material available otherwise. Google Print, as the project is called, stands copyright law on its head, but it may well be the best way for publisher’s to ensure they get paid in the day of the internet.

First, the Kensington Review certainly has a dog in this fight. The advertisements that appear to the right of the text here come from Google. Some code has been placed in the HTML file that allows the company to insert ads on the webpage. The Kensington Review gets paid on a per click basis. That is, no revenues come in unless a reader actually clicks on the ad link. It is not a great deal of money, but it is income.

Under traditional copyright law, the onus is largely on the user to show that their use of copyrighted material is legitimate and legal. Usually, violators get a cease and desist letter, and the courts rarely come into it because it’s rare when these things aren’t open and shut in favor of the copyright holder.

However, Google is saying that it will scan the entire contents of Oxford University, Harvard University, the New York Public Library, Stanford University and the University of Michigan and if there are copyrighted materials there, well, it comes under fair use as understood in copyright law. In return, Google is working with publishers to put ads and sales links into searched pages, creating a new revenue stream for publishers, who have had a pretty rough time in the last couple of decades.

The big guys are the likely losers here. Stephen King and his publishers don’t really benefit from this. But the authors and publishers of less lucrative works (which doesn’t always mean lesser quality; indeed, the opposite is often true) stand to gain through greater exposure and a few extra sales. And it could well make shorter fiction and non-fiction more commercially feasible.

Businesses have to accept the fact that their ability to protect copyright in the digital age is eroding and will continue to do so. The Google Print is an attempt (and not a perfect attempt) to adapt the commercial radio model to publishing. The music is free, and the ads pay the bills. Here, the ads replace some of the revenue lost to free copying of protected material. Sometimes, the best solutions aren’t legal but market-based.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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