COPYCENSE

“The Authors Guild on Tuesday filed a class action lawsuit against search engine Google, alleging that its scanning and digitizing of library books constitutes a ‘massive’ copyright infringement.

“As part of its Google Print Library Project, the company is working to scan all or parts of the book collections of the University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, the New York Public Library and Oxford University and make those texts searchable on Google.”

Ellinor Mills. Authors Guild Sues Google Over Library Project. News.com. Sept. 20, 2005.

See also:

United States District Court (Southern District of New York). Author’s Guild, et al. v. Google Inc. (.pdf) Sept. 20, 2005.

Author’s Guild. Authors Guild Sues Google, Citing “Massive Copyright Infringement” (Press Release) Sept. 20, 2005.

Google Blog. Google Print and the Authors Guild. Sept. 20, 2005.

Associated Press. Google Takes On Copyright Laws. Wired News. Sept. 18, 2005.

Updates:

Tim O’Reilly. Search and Rescue. The New York Times. Sept. 28, 2005.

The Patry Copyright Blog. Google Revisited. Sept. 23, 2005.

Lessig Blog. Google Sued. Sept. 22, 2005.

Burt Helm. For Google, Another Stormy Chapter. BusinessWeek Online. Sept. 22, 2005.

O’Reilly Radar. Author’s Guild Suit, and Google’s Response: My Thoughts. Sept. 21, 2005.

Tim Beyers. Another Google Gaffe? The Motley Fool. Sept. 21, 2005. (“As a member of the Guild and a writer, I’m completely in favor of defending the intellectual property rights of my fellow members. Yet I also depend on the richness of Google so much that I hate to see anything impede the process of digitizing useful texts.”)

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.