Publishers unite against Google

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Publishers unite against Google
Richard Wray and Dan Milmo
The Guardian
06 Jul 2006

Invoking the name of Google is enough to spook most media businesses grappling with the impact of the internet but the search giant’s foray into the realm of books has created a firestorm. The book-publishing industry’s portrayal of Google conjures up images of Guy Montag, the “hero” of Ray Bradbury’s 1950s book-burning masterpiece Fahrenheit 451, gleefully destroying works of literature.

The row is a classic clash between the old and the new; between an industry that can trace its roots back to Johannes Gutenberg and other printers of the 15th century and one that has erupted in just half a decade.

Pessimists in the printed world have drawn parallels between Google’s digitisation of books and the ending of Britain’s net book agreement in the early 1990s. But just as relaxing restrictions on how books are priced led to a renaissance in reading, as booksellers launched marketing ploys such as “three for two” offers, Google’s attempt to free the knowledge locked in pen and ink could be a revolution for the better.

Google’s Book Search programme has two sides. It has co-opted thousands of publishers into its partner programme, which gives Google’s millions of users a chance to discover and then buy books, but it is Google’s library project that has infuriated those same publishers.

The fire was lit over a year ago when Google announced plans to work with five libraries — the New York public library, the Bodleian in Oxford and the libraries of Stanford, Harvard and the University of Michigan — to digitise their books as part of its Print Library project, and make the information gleaned accessible within its online search engine through Google Book Search, already available in test form.

The publishing industry raised the alarm, claiming the process infringed its most valuable asset, copyright. Nigel Newton, chief executive of Bloomsbury, the publisher of the Harry Potter series, tore into Google, labelling the search engine’s plans as “literary predation”. In a speech to mark World Book Day this year, he added that copyright laws were being flouted to provide “windowdressing for a search engine”.

Injunction

The French publisher La Martinire and Germany’s ... read more...