Authors Charge Google with Copyright Infringement

by Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 9/21/2005

The first legal shot fired against Google Print for Libraries came from the Authors Guild, which filed a lawsuit yesterday against Google alleging that the company's library scanning project constitutes "massive copyright infringement." The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by the Authors Guild plus three authors, Herbert Mitgang, Betty Miles and Daniel Hoffman. The Guild is seeking to make the lawsuit a class action.

"A class action opens up possibilities that other authors will join in," says Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken. "I don't know how to resolve this without a class action. There is no other way to round up all the rights."

The complaint states that Google's plan to make digital copies of all the books in the collection of the University of Michigan library is being done without the permission of authors who are the copyright holders. "Google knew or should have known that the Copyright Act required it to obtain authorization from the holders of the copyrights in these literary works before creating and reproducing digital copies of the works for its own commercial use," the complaint states. The suit asks the court to grant a permanent injunction barring Google from continuing to scan books without the author's permission.

Google has defended its library scanning project by saying it falls within the fair use provision of the copyright law. In a statement, Google noted that "copyrighted books are indexed to create an electronic card catalog and only small portions of the books are shown unless the content owner gives permission to show more."

Aiken dismissed that arguement, contending that by have a full copy of a text sitting in Google's database is clear copyright infringement.

The AAP, which has held talks with Google executives to express their concerns with Google Library, issued a statement this morning, backing the Author's Guild. "We fully support the Author's Guild's motives and share the important concerns raised in the suit. We hope that Google will resume the dialogue we began several months ago in an effort to seek an acceptable approach to the treatment of copyrighted works, the statement read.