Google Books in More Trouble

Google Books has already come under fire on Sept. 20, 2005 by the Author's Guild with a class action lawsuit against them for partially digitizing copywritten books. Now, Amazon.com has allied with The Open Book Alliance to limit their monopoly on out-of-print books. Amazon is the largest retailer of books; both printed and digitized.

Many authors fear that the printed word and payment will become obsolete. Also, some fear that Google's dominance in the out-of-print market will limit publishers from accessing these books in the future. Google seems to acknowledge this fact, and disputes it on their website.

"Some of our critics believe that somehow Google Books will become a substitute for the printed
word. To the contrary, our goal is to improve access to books - not to replace them. Indeed,
we're working closely with publishers to develop new tools and opportunities for selling books
online.

Copyright law is supposed to ensure that authors and publishers have an incentive to create new
work, not stop people from finding out that the work exists. By helping people find books, we
believe we can increase the incentive to publish them. After all, if a book isn't discovered, it won't
be bought."

Google also acknowledges the fact that some might consider the digitization of books illegal. On their Google Books Fiction/Fact page, the question is asked, "If a book is still under copyright, scanning it without permission is illegal." Google cites The "fair use" provisions of U.S. copyright law (USC 17 107). This is the same law and argument cited by peer-to-peer networks allowing people to download music for free.

Microsoft and Yahoo! have also aligned with the Author's guild to oppose Google Book's current affairs.