Google’s plan to scan library books to make the texts available for searching is meeting stiff opposition from parts of academia.

The American Authors Guild has sued Google for copyright infringement, arguing that “the $90 billion search engine and advertising juggernaut is engaging in massive copyright infringement at the expense of the rights of individual writers.�

“This is a plain and brazen violation of copyright law,â€? says Authors Guild president Nick Taylor. “It’s not up to Google or anyone other than the authors, the rightful owners of these copyrights, to decide whether and how their works will be copied.â€?

As always there is more than one side to a story. Although the authors’ worry about copyright protection is understandable, they hide the enormous potential of the Google Print programme.

The main argument is, of course, that Google will make books known that are now hidden in the vaults of some of the world’s largest libraries. This means more readers for the authors, and – potentially – more sales of “physical� books from their back catalog.

Google’s own blog explains that Google doesn’t show even a single page to users who find copyrighted books through this program, unless the copyright holder gives them permission to do so:

“At most we show only a brief snippet of text where their search term appears, along with basic bibliographic information and several links to online booksellers and libraries.�

Moreover, authors may ask Google to exclude their content from the database. In our book, that should be good enough.

Authors Guild Sues Google, Citing “Massive Copyright Infringement� (press release)

See also Pandia: Program to promote books in Google Print