Google is being sued for it's plans to index and scan books from five major libraries. The suit is brought on by The Association of American Publishers who say that Google's Print Library Project will infringe their copyrights, reports BBC News.
The publishers and Google have tried to reach an agreement but haven't be able to do so. The Google project would enable Internet users to search throughout millions of printed books. But users wont be able to download and print an entire book or even read it on screen, They will only be able to view a few sentences from each printed work, states Google.
If that is really the case I think the suit seems sort of ridiculous and counter productive. Shouldn't the book industry be welcoming this kind of cool marketing. Wouldn't it be really good for book sales if users were allowed to find books via Google and sample them on the net?
To me there are more than one similarity between this case and the way the record labels fight file distribution. In stead of embracing the new technology and finding ways to make their product (and business) better by using it they decide to lawyer up and go to war against it.
Recently former VP of Napster Don Dodge explained how Napster originally tried to reach an agreement with the music labels (the RIAA) to sell their music but the RIIA wouldn't budge and instead Napster wound up being sued:
»The RIAA succeeded in shutting down Napster, but lost billions in potential revenue over the next several years to Gnutella, Grokster, Morpheus, Kazaa and others,« writes Dodge.
Hm... Is that what's in store for the court happy publishers?
