Publishers' Group Asks Google To Halt Scanning For 6 Months
Publishers’ Group Asks Google to Stop Scanning Copyrighted Works for 6 Months in The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the Association of American Publishers has sent a letter to Google requesting at least a six month moratorium on scanning copyrighted library materials for the Google Library project which is a part of Google Print.
Mr. [Allan] Adler [vice president for legal and governmental affairs at the AAP] said the letter was sent because members of the publishers’ association feel they have not “gotten satisfactory answers to their questions about copyright infringement.” Many publishers say that Google does not have the right even to scan a copyrighted book — they argue that making a digital copy of a volume for any commercial purpose requires the permission of the copyright holder.
According to the article, a letter was sent to Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, on June 10th requesting a meeting with Google officials. Susan Wojcicki, director of product management for Google Print, told The Chronicle of Higher Education, that Google has not yet responded to the AAP’s letter.
At this point, the June 10th letter from the APP to Google has not
been publicly released. According to the article, the Association of American Publishers is giving Google time to respond before making it publicly available.
This is not the first letter sent by a publishing group to Google about the Google Library program.
This is not the first letter Google has received from a publishing industry trade group. Late last month, we blogged about another trade group, The Association of American University Presses, sending a letter to Google expressing their concerns about the Google Library program. Our post along with a link to the full text of that letter is here.