Google Library v Publisher – Digitization Google reaches Library Project settlement in court case with publishers

Concepts: Ethical publishing principles-piracy & file sharing sites; copyright regulations & fair use 

After 7 years of battling on the formation of web-based library project, Google and a group of American publishers finally has reached a settlement. The court has decide to grant the company of the most popular search engine a permission to continue their primary project to digitize the libraries system of 7 major universities. However, publishers have the right to refuse permitting their written product to be digitized or remove from the digital library, while Google also assured that only about 20% of particular books are browsable whilst whole book are sellable online. According to Scott Carlson and Jeffrey R. Young (2005), the project involves libraries of Harvard University, University of Oxford, New York University, Stanford University as well as University of Michigan. The plaintiffs, includes John Wiley & Sons, Pearson Education Incorporated, Simon and Schuster, Penguin Group (USA), and McGraw Hill, filed the suit regarding the issue of copyright infringement. With the changing in lifestyle, due to the technology advancement, the trend to stick with communication devices are increasing. People start to prefer to use technology instead of old tradition. Thus, this group of publisher afraid that Google library project would affect their business, as most of the users would prefer reading it online instead of buy the printed version (Harris 2012). In my opinion, the Google intention to digitize the University Library system is a good effort to help students obtaining information and knowledge for education purposes and the most important thing, the information comes from the right source. I am very confident that Google is aware about the student learning patterns of using the Internet since they have the data of each of their ‘customer’. Most of the students want to get direct answers quickly without having to read the particular chapter of the book. Here Google, concern that some students take a shortcut by taking information from a source that is not recognized from e.g. Wikipedia and blogs. Therefore, this project not only helps the students, but also generates income to the publisher where the purchase of printed books or e-books can be made via ​​online. In addition, according Copyright Amendment Act 2006 (Cth) “with the aim of providing a 'flexible exception to enable copyright material to be used for socially beneficial purposes”. Clearly, the project is beneficial to both sides. As an undergraduate student at Taylor's University, I fully support the program inspired by Google.

References

Carlson, S., & Young, J. (2005). Google will digitize and search millions of books from 5 top research libraries. Chronicle of Higher Education, 51(18), A37.

Australian Digital Alliance. (2011). Section 200AB Flexible Dealing Handbook Online. Available: http://digital.org.au/reform-goal/flexible-copyright-exceptions. Last accessed 13th June 2013.