Google Book Search
Encyclopedia
Google Books is a service from Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

 that searches the full text of books that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition
Optical character recognition
Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is the mechanical or electronic translation of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is widely used to convert books and documents into electronic files, to computerize a record-keeping...

, and stored in its digital database. The service was formerly known as Google Print when it was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair
Frankfurt Book Fair
The Frankfurt Book Fair is the world's largest trade fair for books, based on the number of publishing companies represented. As to the number of visitors, the Turin Book Fair attracts about as many visitors, viz. some 300,000....

 in October 2004. Google's Library Project, also now known as Google Book Search, was announced in December 2004.

Results from Google Book Search show up in both general web search at google.com and through the dedicated Google Books site (books.google.com). Up to three results from the Google Books index may be displayed, if relevant, above other search results in the Google Web search service (google.com).

Subscribing users can click on a result from Google Books that opens an interface in which the user may view pages from the book, if out of copyright or if the copyright owner has given permission. Books in the public domain are available in "full view" and free for download. For in-print books, Google limits the number of viewable pages through a variety of access limitations and security measures, some based on user-tracking. For books that may be covered by copyright and where the owner has not been identified, only "snippets" (two to three lines of text) are shown, though the full text of the book is searchable.

Most scanned works are no longer in print or commercially available. For those which are, the site provides links to the website of the publisher and booksellers.

The Google Books database continues to grow. For users outside the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, though, Google must be sure that the work in question is indeed out of copyright under local laws. According to a member of the Google Books Support Team, "Since whether a book is in the public domain can often be a tricky legal question, we err on the side of caution and display at most a few snippets until we have determined that the book has entered the public domain." Users outside the United States can however access a large number of public domain books scanned by Google using copies stored on the Internet Archive
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...

.

Many of the books are scanned using the Elphel
Elphel
Elphel is an open hardware and open source camera designed by Elphel Inc. primarily for scientific applications, though due to its both open hardware and open source camera software, FLOSS it can easily be customised for many different applications. Elphel Inc...

 323 camera at a rate of 1,000 pages per hour.

The initiative has been hailed for its potential to offer unprecedented access to what may become the largest online corpus of human knowledge and promoting the democratization of knowledge
Democratization of knowledge
The democratization of knowledge is the acquisition and spread of knowledge amongst the common people, not just privileged elites such as priests and academics.-History:The printing press was one of the early steps towards the democratization of knowledge....

, but it has also been criticized for potential copyright violations.

, the number of scanned books is over 15 million. Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

 estimated in 2010 that there are about 130 million unique books in the world, and that it intends to scan all of them by the end of the decade.

Competition

  • Internet Archive
    Internet Archive
    The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...

     is a non-profit which digitizes over 1000 books a day, as well as mirrors books from Google Books and other sources. As of May 2011, it hosted over 2.8 million public domain books, greater than the approximate 1 million public domain books at Google Books. Open Library
    Open Library
    Open Library is an online project intended to create “one web page for every book ever published”. Open Library is a project of the non-profit Internet Archive and has been funded in part by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation.-Books for the blind and...

    , a sister project of Internet Archive, lends 80,000 scanned and purchased commercial ebooks to the visitors of 150 libraries.
  • HathiTrust
    HathiTrust
    HathiTrust is a very large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via the Google Books project and Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally by libraries....

     maintains HathiTrust Digital Library since 13 October 2008, which preserves and provides access to material scanned by Google, some of the Internet Archive books, and some scanned locally by partner institutions. As of May 2010, it includes about 6 million volumes, over 1 million of which are public domain.
  • Microsoft funded the scanning of 300,000 books to create Live Search Books
    Live Search Books
    Live Search Books was a search service for books launched in December 2006, part of Microsoft's Live Search range of services. Microsoft was working with a number of libraries, including the British Library, to digitize books and make them searchable, and in the case of out-of-copyright books,...

     in late 2006. It ran until May 2008, when the project was abandoned and the books made available on Internet Archive restriction free.
  • Europeana
    Europeana
    Europeana.eu is an internet portal that acts as an interface to millions of books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records that have been digitised throughout Europe...

     links to roughly 10 million digital objects as of 2010, including video, photos, paintings, audio, maps, manuscripts, printed books, and newspapers from the past 2,000 years of European history from over 1,000 archives in the European Union.
  • Gallica from the French National Library links to about 800,000 digitized books, newspapers, manuscripts, maps and drawings, etc. Created in 1997, the digital library continues to expand at a rate of about 5000 new documents per month. Since the end of 2008, most of the new scanned documents are available in image and text formats. Most of these documents are written in French.

2004

December 2004 Google signaled an extension to its Google Print initiative known as the Google Print Library Project. Google announced partnerships with several high-profile university and public libraries, including the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

, Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 (Harvard University Library
Harvard University Library
The Harvard University Library system comprises about 90 libraries, with more than 16 million volumes. It is the oldest library system in the United States, the largest academic and the largest private library system in the world...

), Stanford (Green Library
Green Library
The Cecil H. Green Library is the main library on the Stanford University campus and part of Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources . It is named for Cecil H. Green....

), Oxford (Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...

), and the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...

. According to press releases and university librarians, Google plans to digitize and make available through its Google Books service approximately 15 million volumes within a decade. The announcement soon triggered controversy, as publisher and author associations challenged Google's plans to digitize, not just books in the public domain, but also titles still under copyright.

2005

September–October 2005 Two lawsuits against Google charge that the company has not respected copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...

s and has failed to properly compensate authors and publishers. One is a class action suit on behalf of authors (Authors Guild v. Google, Sept. 20 2005) and the other is a civil lawsuit brought by five large publishers and the Association of American Publishers
Association of American Publishers
The Association of American Publishers is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly...

. (McGraw Hill v. Google, Oct. 19 2005)

November 2005: Google changed the name of this service from Google Print to Google Book Search. Its program enabling publishers and authors to include their books in the service was renamed "Google Books Partner Program" and the partnership with libraries became Google Books Library Project
Google Books Library Project
The Google Books Library Project is an effort by Google to scan and make searchable the collections of several major research libraries. The project, along with Google's Partner Program, comprise Google Books . Along with bibliographic information, snippets of text from a book are often viewable...

.

2006

August 2006: The University of California System announced that it would join the Books digitization project. This includes a portion of the 34 million volumes within the approximately 100 libraries managed by the System.

September 2006: The Complutense University of Madrid
Complutense University of Madrid
The Complutense University of Madrid is a university in Madrid, and one of the oldest universities in the world. It is located on a sprawling campus that occupies the entirety of the Ciudad Universitaria district of Madrid, with annexes in the district of Somosaguas in the neighboring city of...

 becomes the first Spanish-language library to join the Google Books Library Project.

October 2006: The University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...

 announced that it would join the Book Search digitization project along with the Wisconsin Historical Society
Wisconsin Historical Society
The Wisconsin Historical Society is simultaneously a private membership and a state-funded organization whose purpose is to maintain, promote and spread knowledge relating to the history of North America, with an emphasis on the state of Wisconsin and the trans-Allegheny West...

 Library. Combined, the libraries have 7.2 million holdings.

November 2006: The University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...

 joins the project. Its libraries contain more than five million volumes and more than 17 million manuscripts, rare books and archives.

2007

January 2007: The University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...

 announced that it would join the Book Search digitization project. At least one million volumes will be digitized from the University's 13 library locations.

March 2007: The Bavarian State Library
Bavarian State Library
The Bavarian State Library in Munich is the central "Landesbibliothek", i. e. the state library of the Free State of Bavaria and one of Europe's most important universal libraries. With its collections currently comprising around 9.39 million books, it ranks among the best research libraries...

 announced a partnership with Google to scan more than a million public domain and out-of-print works in German as well as English, French, Italian, Latin, and Spanish.

May 2007: A book digitizing project partnership was announced jointly by Google and the Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne
Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne
The Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne was founded in the 16th century and has become one of the most important public libraries in Switzerland.-History:...

.

May 2007: The Boekentoren
Boekentoren
The Boekentoren, is a famous building located in Ghent, Belgium, designed by the Belgian architect Henry Van de Velde...

 Library of Ghent University
Ghent University
Ghent University is a Dutch-speaking public university located in Ghent, Belgium. It is one of the larger Flemish universities, consisting of 32,000 students and 7,100 staff members. The current rector is Paul Van Cauwenberge.It was established in 1817 by King William I of the Netherlands...

 will participate with Google in digitizing and making digitized versions of 19th century books in the French and Dutch languages available online.

June 2007: The Committee on Institutional Cooperation
Committee on Institutional Cooperation
The Committee on Institutional Cooperation is the academic consortium of the universities in the Big Ten Conference plus former conference member, the University of Chicago....

 (CIC) announced that its twelve member libraries would participate in scanning 10 million books over the course of the next six years.

July 2007: Keio University
Keio University
,abbreviated as Keio or Keidai , is a Japanese university located in Minato, Tokyo. It is known as the oldest institute of higher education in Japan. Founder Fukuzawa Yukichi originally established it as a school for Western studies in 1858 in Edo . It has eleven campuses in Tokyo and Kanagawa...

 became Google's first library partner in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 with the announcement that they would digitize at least 120,000 public domain books.

August 2007: Google announced that it would digitize up to 500,000 both copyrighted and public domain items from Cornell University Library
Cornell University Library
The Cornell University Library is the library system of Cornell University. In 2010 it held 8 million printed volumes in open stacks, 8.5 million microfilms and microfiches, more than of manuscripts, and close to 500,000 other materials, including motion pictures, DVDs, sound recordings, and...

. Google will also provide a digital copy of all works scanned to be incorporated into the university's own library system.

September 2007: Google added a feature that allows users to share snippets of books that are in the public domain. The snippets may appear exactly as they do in the scan of the book or as plain text.

September 2007: Google debuts a new feature called "My Library" which allows users to create personal customized libraries, selections of books that they can label, review, rate, or full-text search.

December 2007: Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 was added as a partner in digitizing public domain works.

2008

May 2008: Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 tapers off and plans to end its scanning project
Live Search Books
Live Search Books was a search service for books launched in December 2006, part of Microsoft's Live Search range of services. Microsoft was working with a number of libraries, including the British Library, to digitize books and make them searchable, and in the case of out-of-copyright books,...

 which reached 750,000 books and 80 million journal articles.

October 2008: A settlement
Google Book Search Settlement Agreement
The Google Book Search Settlement Agreement is an agreement between the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and Google in settlement of Authors Guild et al. v. Google, a class action lawsuit alleging Copyright infringement. On October 28, 2008, Google announced an agreement to pay...

 is reached between the publishing industry and Google after two years of negotiation. Google agrees to compensate authors and publishers in exchange for the right to make millions of books available to the public.

November 2008: Google reaches the 7 million book mark for items scanned by Google and by their publishing partners. 1 million are in full preview mode and 1 million are fully viewable and downloadable public domain works. About five million are currently out of print
Out-of-print book
An out-of-print book is a book that is no longer being published. Out-of-print books are often rare, and may be difficult to acquire.A publisher will usually create a print run of a fixed number of copies of a new book. These books can be ordered in bulk by booksellers, and when all the...

.

December 2008: Google announces the inclusion of magazines in Google Books. Titles include New York Magazine, Ebony
Ebony (magazine)
Ebony, a monthly magazine for the African-American market, was founded by John H. Johnson and has published continuously since the autumn of 1945...

, Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics is an American magazine first published January 11, 1902 by H. H. Windsor, and has been owned since 1958 by the Hearst Corporation...

, and others.

2009

May 2009: At the annual BookExpo convention in New York, Google signaled its intent to introduce a program that would enable publishers to sell digital versions of their newest books direct to consumers through Google.

In December 2009 a French court shut down the scanning of copyrighted books published in France saying it violated copyright laws. It was the first major legal loss for the scanning project.

2010

April 2010: Visual artists were not included in the previous lawsuit and settlement, and are the plaintiff groups in another law suit, and say they intend to bring more than just Google Books under scrutiny. “The new class action,” reads the statement, “goes beyond Google’s Library Project, and includes Google’s other systematic and pervasive infringements of the rights of photographers, illustrators and other visual artists.”
May 2010 : It is reported that Google will launch a digital book store termed as Google Editions
Google Editions
Google eBooks is an e-book program run by Google, originally set to open in mid-summer 2010. It was opened on December 6, 2010 to customers in the United States. It offers universal access and non-restrictive copying...

. It will compete with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple and other electronic book retailers with its very own e-book store. Unlike others, Google Editions will be completely online and will not require a specific device (such as kindle, Nook, iPad, etc.).

June 2010: Google passes 12 million books scanned.

August 2010: It was announced that Google intends to scan all known existing 129,864,880 books by the end of the decade, accounting to over 4 billion digital pages and 2 trillion words in total.

December 2010: Google eBooks (Google Editions) is launched in the US.

2011

March 2011: A federal judge rejects the settlement
Google Book Search Settlement Agreement
The Google Book Search Settlement Agreement is an agreement between the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and Google in settlement of Authors Guild et al. v. Google, a class action lawsuit alleging Copyright infringement. On October 28, 2008, Google announced an agreement to pay...

 reached between the publishing industry and Google.

Google Books Library Project participants

The number of participating institutions has grown since the inception of the Google Books Library Project
Google Books Library Project
The Google Books Library Project is an effort by Google to scan and make searchable the collections of several major research libraries. The project, along with Google's Partner Program, comprise Google Books . Along with bibliographic information, snippets of text from a book are often viewable...

; The University of Mysore has been mentioned in many media reports as being a library partner. They are not, however, listed as a partner by Google.

Initial partners

  • Harvard University
    Harvard University
    Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

    , Harvard University Library
    Harvard University Library
    The Harvard University Library system comprises about 90 libraries, with more than 16 million volumes. It is the oldest library system in the United States, the largest academic and the largest private library system in the world...

    , Harvard + Google
  • University of Michigan
    University of Michigan
    The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

    , University of Michigan Library
    University of Michigan Library
    The University of Michigan University Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is one of the largest university library systems in the United States. The system, consisting of 19 separate libraries in 11 buildings, altogether holds over 9.55 million volumes, with the collection growing at the rate of...

    , Michigan + Google
  • New York Public Library
    New York Public Library
    The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...

    , New York Public Library + Google
  • University of Oxford
    University of Oxford
    The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

    , Bodleian Library
    Bodleian Library
    The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...

    , Oxford + Google
  • Stanford University
    Stanford University
    The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

    , Stanford University Libraries (SULAIR), Stanford + Google

Additional partners

Other institutional partners have joined the Project since the partnership was first announced.
  • Bavarian State Library
    Bavarian State Library
    The Bavarian State Library in Munich is the central "Landesbibliothek", i. e. the state library of the Free State of Bavaria and one of Europe's most important universal libraries. With its collections currently comprising around 9.39 million books, it ranks among the best research libraries...

    , Bavaria + Google, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek + Google (in German)
  • Columbia University
    Columbia University
    Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

    , Columbia University Library System
    Columbia University Library System
    The Columbia University Libraries is the library system of Columbia University. With over 10.4 million volumes, is the sixth largest academic library in the United States; it is the third largest library — and the largest academic library — in the State of New York...

    , Columbia + Google
  • Committee on Institutional Cooperation
    Committee on Institutional Cooperation
    The Committee on Institutional Cooperation is the academic consortium of the universities in the Big Ten Conference plus former conference member, the University of Chicago....

    , CIC + Google
  • Complutense University of Madrid
    Complutense University of Madrid
    The Complutense University of Madrid is a university in Madrid, and one of the oldest universities in the world. It is located on a sprawling campus that occupies the entirety of the Ciudad Universitaria district of Madrid, with annexes in the district of Somosaguas in the neighboring city of...

    , Madrid + Google, Complutense Universidad + Google (in Spanish)
  • Cornell University
    Cornell University
    Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

    , Cornell University Library
    Cornell University Library
    The Cornell University Library is the library system of Cornell University. In 2010 it held 8 million printed volumes in open stacks, 8.5 million microfilms and microfiches, more than of manuscripts, and close to 500,000 other materials, including motion pictures, DVDs, sound recordings, and...

    , Cornell + Google
  • Ghent University
    Ghent University
    Ghent University is a Dutch-speaking public university located in Ghent, Belgium. It is one of the larger Flemish universities, consisting of 32,000 students and 7,100 staff members. The current rector is Paul Van Cauwenberge.It was established in 1817 by King William I of the Netherlands...

    , Ghent University Library
    Ghent University Library
    The Ghent University Library is located in the city of Ghent, Belgium. It serves the university community of students and scholarly researchers.The library has evolved in recent years, focusing on decentralization and networking rather than a central facility...

    /Boekentoren
    Boekentoren
    The Boekentoren, is a famous building located in Ghent, Belgium, designed by the Belgian architect Henry Van de Velde...

    , Ghent/Gent + Google
  • Keio University
    Keio University
    ,abbreviated as Keio or Keidai , is a Japanese university located in Minato, Tokyo. It is known as the oldest institute of higher education in Japan. Founder Fukuzawa Yukichi originally established it as a school for Western studies in 1858 in Edo . It has eleven campuses in Tokyo and Kanagawa...

    , Keio Media Centers (Libraries)
    Keio Media Centers (Libraries)
    Keio Media Centers is the English name used by Keio University to describe its library system.The Media Centers on the various Keio campuses are important information resources for students, faculty, and researchers...

    , Keio + Google (in English), Keio + Google (in Japanese)
  • La Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon
    Lyon
    Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

    , Lyon + Google (in French)
  • Princeton University
    Princeton University
    Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

    , Princeton University Library
    Princeton University Library
    Princeton University Library is the main library system of Princeton University. With holdings of more than 7 million books, 6 million microforms, and 37,000 linear feet of manuscripts, it is headquartered in the Harvey S...

    , Princeton + Google
  • University of California
    University of California
    The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

    , California Digital Library
    California Digital Library
    The California Digital Library is the University of California's 11th University Library. The CDL was founded to assist the ten University of California libraries in sharing their resources and holdings more effectively, in part through negotiating and acquiring consortial licenses on behalf of...

    , California + Google
  • University of Lausanne
    University of Lausanne
    The University of Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of theology, before being made a university in 1890. Today about 12,000 students and 2200 researchers study and work at the university...

    , Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne
    Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne
    The Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne was founded in the 16th century and has become one of the most important public libraries in Switzerland.-History:...

    /Bibliothèque Cantonale et Universitaire (BCU) + Google (in French)
  • University of Mysore
    University of Mysore
    The University of Mysore , is a public university in India. The University founded during the reign of Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV, the Maharaja of Mysore, and was conceptualized on the basis of a report on educational progress in the United States and Australia, submitted by Messrs Thomas Denham and...

    , Mysore University Library
    Mysore University Library
    The Mysore University Library serves the academic community of the University of Mysore at the located in Mysore, Hassan and Mandya. The Library is the largest and also oldest among the University Libraries in the southern Indian State of Karnataka....

    , Mysore + Google
  • University of Texas at Austin
    University of Texas at Austin
    The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...

    , University of Texas Libraries, Texas + Google
  • University of Virginia
    University of Virginia
    The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...

    , University of Virginia Library, Virginia + Google
  • University of Wisconsin–Madison
    University of Wisconsin–Madison
    The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...

    , University of Wisconsin Libraries, Wisconsin + Google

Copyright infringement, fair use and related issues

The publishing industry and writers' groups have criticized the project's inclusion of snippets of copyrighted works as infringement. In late 2005 the Authors Guild of America and Association of American Publishers
Association of American Publishers
The Association of American Publishers is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly...

 separately sued Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

, citing "massive copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...

." Google countered that its project represented a fair use
Fair use
Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...

 and is the digital age equivalent of a card catalog with every word in the publication indexed. Despite Google taking measures to provide full text of only works in public domain, and providing only a searchable summary online for books still under copyright protection, publishers maintain that Google has no right to copy full text of books with copyrights and save them, in large amounts, into its own database.

Other lawsuits followed but in 2006 a German lawsuit was withdrawn. In June 2006, Hervé de la Martinière, a French publisher known as La Martinière and Éditions du Seuil
Éditions du Seuil
Éditions du Seuil is a French publishing house created in 1935, currently owned by La Martinière Groupe. It owes its name to this goal "The seuil is the whole excitement of parting and arriving...

, announced its intention to sue Google France. In 2009, the Paris Civil Court awarded
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...

300,000 (approximately 430,000) in damages and interest and ordered Google to pay €10,000 a day until it removes the publisher's books from its database. The court wrote, "Google violated author copyright laws by fully reproducing and making accessible" books that Seuil owns without its permission and that Google "committed acts of breach of copyright, which are of harm to the publishers". Google said it will appeal. Syndicat National de l'Edition, which joined the lawsuit, said Google has scanned about 100,000 French works under copyright.

In December 2009, Chinese author Mian Mian
Mian Mian
Mian Mian is a Chinese writer. She writes on China's once-taboo topics and she is a promoter of Shanghai's local music. Her publications have earned her the reputation as China's literary wild child, and some are banned in China....

 filed a civil lawsuit for $8,900 against Google for scanning her novel, Acid Lovers. This is the first such lawsuit to be filed against Google in China.

In March 2007, Thomas Rubin, associate general counsel for copyright, trademark, and trade secrets at Microsoft, accused Google of violating copyright law with their book search service. Rubin specifically criticized Google's policy of freely copying any work until notified by the copyright holder to stop.

Siva Vaidhyanathan
Siva Vaidhyanathan
Siva Vaidhyanathan is a cultural historian and media scholar, and is currently a professor of Media Studies and Law at the University of Virginia. Vaidhyanathan is a frequent contributor on media and cultural issues in various periodicals including The Chronicle of Higher Education, New York Times...

, associate professor of Media Studies and Law at the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...

 has argued that the project poses a danger for the doctrine of fair use
Fair use
Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...

, because the fair use claims are arguably so excessive that it may cause judicial limitation of that right. It can also be said that, because rights are almost always inherently limited in some way, judicial consideration per se, including limitation, of the principle poses no "threat" at all (and might produce benefit through articulated consideration and delineation - that would have not otherwise occurred - of the principle). Because Author's Guild v. Google did not go to court, the fair use dispute is left unresolved.

Google licensing of public domain works is also an area of concern due to using of digital watermarking
Digital watermarking
Digital watermarking is the process of embedding information into a digital signal which may be used to verify its authenticity or the identity of its owners, in the same manner as paper bearing a watermark for visible identification. In digital watermarking, the signal may be audio, pictures, or...

 techniques with the books. Some published works that are in the public domain, such as all works created by the U.S. Federal government, are still treated like other works under copyright, and therefore locked after 1922.

Settlement agreement

The Authors Guild, the publishing industry and Google entered into a settlement agreement
Google Book Search Settlement Agreement
The Google Book Search Settlement Agreement is an agreement between the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and Google in settlement of Authors Guild et al. v. Google, a class action lawsuit alleging Copyright infringement. On October 28, 2008, Google announced an agreement to pay...

 October 28, 2008, with Google agreeing to pay a total of $125 million to rights-holders of books they had scanned, to cover the plaintiffs' court costs, and to create a Book Rights Registry
Book Rights Registry
The Book Rights Registry is an entity to be founded as part of a settlement of the lawsuit between the Authors Guild and Google over the Google Books scanning project. The Registry will be initially funded by $34.5 million from Google but it will be an independent, not-for-profit organization that...

. The settlement has to be approved by the court, which could occur some time after October 2009. Reaction to the settlement has been mixed, with Harvard Library, one of the original contributing libraries to Google Library, choosing to withdraw its partnership with Google if "more reasonable terms" cannot be found. As part of the $125 million settlement signed in October 2008, Google created a Google Book Settlement web site that went active on February 11, 2009. This site allows authors and other rights holders of out-of-print (but copyright) books to submit a claim by June 5, 2010. In return they will receive $60 per full book, or $5 to $15 for partial works. In return, Google will be able to index the books and display snippets in search results, as well as up to 20% of each book in preview mode. Google will also be able to show ads on these pages and make available for sale digital versions of each book. Authors and copyright holders will receive 63 percent of all advertising and e-commerce revenues associated with their works.

In the US, several organizations who took no part of the settlement, like the American Society of Journalists and Authors
American Society of Journalists and Authors
The American Society of Journalists and Authors was founded in 1948 as the Society of Magazine Writers, and is an organization of independent nonfiction writers in the United States...

, criticized the settlement fundamentally. Moreover, the New York book settlement is not restricted to US authors, but relevant to authors of the whole world. This led to objections even on the level of some European governments and critical voices in many European newspapers. American author Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...

 has launched a petition against the settlement, which was signed by almost 300 authors.

In October 2009, Google countered ongoing critics by stating that its scanning of books and putting them online would protect the world's cultural heritage; Google co-founder Sergey Brin
Sergey Brin
Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin is a Russian-born American computer scientist and internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the largest internet companies. , his personal wealth is estimated to be $16.7 billion....

 stated, "The famous Library of Alexandria
Library of Alexandria
The Royal Library of Alexandria, or Ancient Library of Alexandria, in Alexandria, Egypt, was the largest and most significant great library of the ancient world. It flourished under the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty and functioned as a major center of scholarship from its construction in the...

 burned three times, in 48 BC, AD 273 and AD 640, as did the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

, where a fire in 1851 destroyed two-thirds of the collection. I hope such destruction never happens again, but history would suggest otherwise." This characterization was rebuked by Pam Samuelson, UC Berkeley Professor of Law saying "Libraries everywhere are terrified that Google will engage in price-gouging when setting prices for institutional subscriptions to GBS contents ... Brin forgot to mention another significant difference between GBS and traditional libraries: their policies on patron privacy. ... Google has been unwilling to make meaningful commitments to protect user privacy. Traditional libraries, by contrast, have been important guardians of patron privacy." Others have denounced the settlement for neglecting to protect reader privacy.

On March 22, 2011, U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin issued a ruling on the amended settlement agreement, rejecting it. From the ruling: "While the digitization of books and the creation of a universal digital library would benefit many, the ASA would simply go too far. It would permit this class action - - which was brought against defendant Google Inc. ("Google") to challenge
its scanning of books and display of "snippets" for on-line searching - - to implement a forward-looking business arrangement that would grant Google significant rights to exploit entire
books, without permission of the copyright owners. Indeed, the ASA would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission, while releasing claims well beyond those presented in the case. Accordingly, and for the reasons more fully discussed below, the motion for final approval of the ASA is denied."

The Wall Street Journal commented on the practical impact of this ruling saying that: "Judge Chin's ruling changes little for Google users. About two million books that are in the public domain, such as works of William Shakespeare, currently can be viewed free on the Google Books site. [...] Google Books users currently can view long previews of another two million books that are in copyright and in print, thanks to agreements between Google and tens of thousands of publishers that were separate from the legal settlement. Millions more books that are in copyright but out of print are currently available in Google Books in a shorter 'snippet view.' Had the settlement been approved, users would have been able to see longer previews and potentially buy those books."

Language issues

Some European politicians and intellectuals have criticized Google's effort on "language-imperialism" grounds, arguing that because the vast majority of books proposed to be scanned are in English, it will result in disproportionate representation of natural languages in the digital world. German, Russian, and French, for instance, are popular languages in scholarship; the disproportionate online emphasis on English could shape access to historical scholarship, and, ultimately, the growth and direction of future scholarship. Among these critics is Jean-Noël Jeanneney
Jean-Noël Jeanneney
Jean-Noël Jeanneney is a French historian and politician, born on 2 April 1942 in Grenoble. He is the son of Jean-Marcel Jeanneney and the grandson of Jules Jeanneney, both important figures in French politics.-Education:...

, the former president of the Bibliothèque nationale de France
Bibliothèque nationale de France
The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:...

.

Google Books versus Google Scholar

While Google Books has digitized large numbers of journal back issues, its scans do not include the metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...

 required for identifying specific articles in specific issues. This has led the makers of Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes most peer-reviewed online journals of Europe and America's largest...

 to start their own program to digitize and host older journal articles (in agreement with their publishers).

See also

  • A9.com
    A9.com
    A9.com is a subsidiary of Amazon.com based in Palo Alto, California that develops search engine technology. A9 currently has over 100 employees in its Palo Alto, Bangalore, and Dublin offices.A9 has worked in 3 areas over the years....

    , Amazon.com
    Amazon.com
    Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

    's book search
  • Book Rights Registry
    Book Rights Registry
    The Book Rights Registry is an entity to be founded as part of a settlement of the lawsuit between the Authors Guild and Google over the Google Books scanning project. The Registry will be initially funded by $34.5 million from Google but it will be an independent, not-for-profit organization that...

  • Book scanning
    Book scanning
    Book scanning is the process of converting physical books and magazines into digital media such as images, electronic text, or electronic books by using an image scanner....

  • Runivers
    Runivers
    Runivers is a site devoted to Russian culture and history. Runivers targets Russian speaking readers and those interested in Russian culture and history....

  • Digital library
    Digital library
    A digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital formats and accessible by computers. The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks...

  • Google Books Library Project
    Google Books Library Project
    The Google Books Library Project is an effort by Google to scan and make searchable the collections of several major research libraries. The project, along with Google's Partner Program, comprise Google Books . Along with bibliographic information, snippets of text from a book are often viewable...

  • Live Search Books
    Live Search Books
    Live Search Books was a search service for books launched in December 2006, part of Microsoft's Live Search range of services. Microsoft was working with a number of libraries, including the British Library, to digitize books and make them searchable, and in the case of out-of-copyright books,...

  • List of digital library projects
  • Universal library
    Universal library
    A universal library is a library with universal collections. This may be expressed in terms of it containing all existing information, useful information, all books, all works or even all possible works. This ideal, although unrealizable, has influenced and continues to influence librarians and...

  • Project Gutenberg
    Project Gutenberg
    Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...

  • Wikisource
    Wikisource
    Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Its aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, it has...


External links


The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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