Google Book Search, the controversial project to digitize the libraries of four universities (Stanford, Oxford, Harvard and Michigan) and the New York Public Library has garnered the tacit support of a founding father, at least according to University of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman.
News.com reports that Coleman invoked Thomas Jefferson’s famously insatiable drive to acquire and disseminate knowledge during a passionate speech at a conference held by the Association of American Publishers (AAP), and predicted that he “would have loved Google Book Search.” She warned that “millions and millions” of culturally important documents were at risk of permanent obliteration due to lax efforts (and a lack of resources) to conserve them. Appealing to publishers’ hearts and minds, Coleman iterated the “social good of promoting and sharing knowledge,” and, by extension, Google’s efforts to digitize copyrighted works and make “snippets” of them available online.
She was not exactly preaching to the choir; AAP has a suit pending against Google, which charges that making any portion of a protected work searchable without compensation is a copyright violation. And although Coleman pledged not to make digital copies available for unauthorized use, exactly what constitutes authorization is at the center of publishers’ dispute with Google.
While fair use advocates are likely cheering Coleman on, at least a few criticize her for not being forceful enough. Techdirt complains that instead of trying to win publishers’ hearts, Coleman should have aimed a little lower: at their wallets. Publishers, after all, are in business to sell books, not give them away. Mike at Techdirt expounds:
“…The two most important points that publishers need to understand is that (1) this is legal anyway and (2) embracing it allows them to expand their offerings in a number of important ways that can help them make more money.
Of course it stands to reason that if everyone agreed on the legality of Google Book Search there wouldn’t even be a lawsuit, but even if Google fails to impress in court, the genie is already out of the bottle with regard to digitizing works, copyrighted or not. Says Coleman, “We were digitizing books long before Google knocked on our door, and we will continue our preservation efforts long after our contract with Google ends.”
