Google’s fight for its book deal

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On (virtual) paper, it was one of Google’s more ambitious plans. Could it create an online library, and basically digitise millions of books, to make them available across the internet? Could it make them all searchable from a humble PC? Could it make the biggest library of any kind in the world?

In principle, just the technical challenge of that is staggering, although to a company of the scale of Google, at least you figured it might be potentially feasible.

As such, were it just down to whether it was possible, then the answer is probably yes, with a lot of resources and a lot of time invested into it. However, since it announced its plans over five years ago, it’s hit far trickier challenges.

Because - not surprisingly - not everyone was delighted with Google’s plan, and it soon hit legal problems.

Complaints

The original complaint against the Google idea was raised in 2004 by the Authors Guild Of America and the Association of American Publishers. These two organisations opted to take legal action against Google on the basis of copyright infringement.

They argued that Google was basically profiting from authors’ and publishers’ work, without permission, involvement or recompense to those who did the work in the first place.

Google went into negotiations on the matter, resulting in a deal being brokered in 2005 that potentially covered up to 25 million books. That deal committed Google to create a Book Rights Registry, that would allow authors and publishers to register and claim money for their work.

Google agreed to set aside $125 million for the Registry idea, which would mean that revenues from advertising, sales and subscriptions could be claimed by rights holders.

And it’s that very agreement that, nearly five years later, has ended up in court, for the agreement that Google reached required ratification from the American legal system.

But finding a date for that has proven tricky given how many voices wanted to be heard, and after many delays, October 2009 was pencilled into the diary. Further complaints over what’s proven to be this contentious plan led to the court date moving back to February 2010, and at the time of writing, the issue is finally before Judge Denny Chin of the Southern District Court.

Issues

The issues before him are numerous and complex. Firstly, just wrapping his head around how the Registry system will work is a difficult matter in itself, not least because 26 interested parties will be giving their testimonies as part of the proceedings.

But there’s also the points raised by the Open Book Alliance (OBA), which sum up the arguments felt by many across the globe. Namely this: that the creation of Google’s online library would give the firm a massive monopoly in online book sales.

In the words of the Alliance: “The OBA believes that Google has achieved a de facto exclusive license that will provide the company with an enormous advantage over its search competitors that was not achieved through the operation of normal market forces, but through Google’s disregard for copyright holders’ rights and the attempt to manipulate the class action process… An approved Google Books Settlement would essentially reward Google for flouting US copyright laws for more than three years, while those who respected the law would be severely punished.”

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