[A2k] Google Book Search and the Future of Books in Cyberspace by Pamela Samuelson

[Manon Ress]

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3D1535067

Google Book Search and the Future of Books in Cyberspace

Pamela Samuelson
UC Berkeley School of Law

Minnesota Law Review, Forthcoming

Abstract:
The Google Book Search (GBS) initiative once promised to test the
bounds of fair use, as the company started scanning millions of in-
copyright books from the collections of major research libraries. The
initial goal of this scanning was to make indexes of the books=92
contents and to provide short snippets of book contents in response to
pertinent search queries. The Authors Guild and five trade publishers
sued Google in the fall of 2005 charging that this scanning activity
was copyright infringement. Google defended by claiming fair use.
Rather than litigating this important issue, however, the parties
devised a radical plan to restructure the market for digital books,
which was announced on October 28, 2008, by means of a class action
settlement of the lawsuits. Approval of this settlement would give
Google=97and Google alone=97a license to commercialize all out-of-print
books and to make up to 20 per cent of their contents available in
response to search queries (unless rights holders expressly forbade
this).

This article discusses the glowingly optimistic predictions about the
future of books in cyberspace promulgated by proponents of the GBS
settlement and contrasts them with six categories of serious
reservations that have emerged about the settlement. These more
pessimistic views of GBS are reflected in the hundreds objections and
numerous amicus curiae briefs filed with the court responsible for
determining whether to approve the settlement. GBS poses risks for
publishers, academic authors and libraries, professional writers, and
readers as well as for competition and innovation in several markets
and for the cultural ecology of knowledge. Serious concerns have also
been expressed about the GBS settlement as an abuse of the class
action process because it usurps legislative prerogatives. The article
considers what might happen to the future of books in cyberspace if
the GBS deal is not approved and recommends that regardless of whether
the GBS settlement is approved, a consortium of research libraries
ought to develop a digital database of books from their collections
that would enhance access to books without posing the many risks to
the public interest that the GBS deal has created

Accepted Paper Series
Date posted: ; Last revised: January 12, 2010



***************************************************************************
Manon Ress
manon.ress@keionline.org
Knowledge Ecology International
1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA
Tel.:  +1.202.332.2670, Fax: +1.202.332.2673

Il vaut mieux remuer une question, sans la d=E9cider, que la d=E9cider,
sans la remuer. (Pens=E9es, essais, maximes et correspondance de J.
Joubert  p.249)
Translation: It is better to debate a question without settling it
than to settle a question without debating it