Let's admit it, everybody searches quickly for a book on Google to see a preview or to find out where to buy it. The magic, that Google offers to students and book lovers, is quite painful for the company, having arguing during the last seven years with the most important US book publishers. It seems that they have finally reached a settlement to allow Google digitize books and journals, so that more people can access them, without fearing about copyrights.
Google And US Publishers Settle Over Digital Books Issue
This is a small, but important step forward for Google’s plan to digitize every book and journal in this world and make them readable and searchable online, the so-called Google Library Project. Although Google managed to convince US justice about its honest thoughts, some American publishers are still skeptical about this project, they effectively fear that Google will steal some of their profit, by making everything accessible.
The publishers involved in the settlement, expected since last year, are the McGraw-Hill Companies, Pearson Education, Penguin Group, John Wiley & Sons and Simon & Schuster, all members of the Association of American Publishers. Concretely, the deal allows publishers to choose whether to allow Google to digitize their physical books that are still under copyright protection. If Google does so, Google will also provide them with a digital copy for their own use, which is quite fair: one gives, the other pays back. If they choose to remove their books and journals already digitized, Google will respect their will and erase them.
Google And US Publishers Settle Over Digital Books Issue
Things get more complicated for books that are already digitized: Google agreed, with strong hesitation, to allow people to read only 20% of them online and purchase the entire books from the Google Play store. For a student, it's quite frustrating to use only a quarter of the book and then break the piggy bank for the whole book, but these are the new rules of the game. For the moment, the two parties didn't disclose the financial terms of the agreement.
The ironic part of this fight is that the transition to e-books is a commonplace now. Digital books were a new and threatening prospect when the publishers first sued Google seven years ago, but publishers seem to have their memory selective, they all complaint about intellectual property, without thinking that Google might as well have some intellectual rights over the effective digitization.
Google And US Publishers Settle Over Digital Books Issue
Google had a difficult time with authors too, not only with the publishing houses, since each part claimed to be victim of intellectual robbery. The settlement with the publishers, though, could give Google some help in its ongoing litigation with the authors, because the institutions agreed Google could scan and make knowledge popular, but some authors might not be that happy about this prospect, after all they live from selling concrete books with autographs, not scans, that can be cheaply multiplied.
I remind you that the groups representing authors and publishers sued Google in 2005, arguing that its digital book-scanning violated their copyrights. After years of arguing over and over, they agreed to a $125 million settlement, but it was rejected last year by a federal judge, Denny Chin, who said it was too big for such a not apocalyptical damage. While the authors remain in court, the publishers reached the agreement with Google privately, so the company could breathe easily for the moment.
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