Google Slows Library Project to Accommodate Publishers

Late in May, a group of publishers challenged the Google Print for Libraries program as a major breach of copyright. Oddly enough, the group was the Association of American University Presses (AAUP; http://www.aaupnet.org), a group of nonprofit, self-confessed niche market publishers whom, one might have thought, would have seen the Google Print program as ideal for broadening their market. (See "Google Library Project Hit by Copyright Challenge from University Presses," http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb050531-2.shtml.) The Association of American Publishers (http://www.publishers.org), which represents commercial publishers primarily, and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (http://www.alpsp.org) soon chimed in with similar objections. While none of the groups objected to Google Print for Publishers, where the publishers make the decision as to whether to join and what to contribute, the groups were alarmed at seeing their copyrighted content "shanghai-ed" into the program through the digitization of library book collections.

Out of curiosity, what happens when a company or other group decides to do this in a place that doesn't particularly care about U.S. copyright law?