International Group of Publishers Asks Google to "Cease" Scanning Library Books
An international group of publishers is requesting that Google “cease” scanning copyrighted materials for the Google Print for Libraries project until “appropriate licensing” can be worked out. The request was posted today on the The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) site. The ALPSP is a trade association of not-for-profit publishers learned societies, university presses and others in more than 30 countries.
You can read the full text of the ALSP postion paper about Google Print for Libraries here (PDF).
Here’s the final paragraph from the ALPSP paper:
The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers calls on Google to cease unlicensed digitisation of copyright materials with immediate effect, and to enter into urgent discussions with representatives of the publishing industry in order to arrive at an appropriate licensing solution for ?Google Print for Libraries?. We cannot believe that a business which prides itself on its cooperation with publishers could seriously wish to build part of its business on a basis of copyright infringement.
Recently, I’ve blogged similar copyright concerns about Google Print for Libraries coming from the The Association of American University Presses (AAUP) and Association of American Publishers (AAP). The AAP has asked Google for a six month morotorium on scanning copyrighted library books.
In this blog post I do my best to differentiate Google Print for Libraries and Google Print for Publishers. For info about non-Google book digitization projects, this this post has info about two of many initiatives. Here, you’ll find links to a few favorite online book database where most of the content is available full text and is free.