Google backtracks a little on Print

Temporary respite gives publishers an opportunity to list copyright no-go areas

Google has announced that it is scaling down its Google Print Library Project for three months, and in future will not scan any in-copyright books that publishers specify should be kept out of the free Print library.

In an announcement on the company's official blog, Google Print Product manager, Adam M Smith, acknowledged that the programme had caused considerable industry unease and a great deal of heated debate.

He said: "As with many ambitious ideas, Google Print has sparked a healthy amount of discussion. And we've been listening. Over the last few months, we’ve been talking with numerous publishers, publishing industry organizations and authors about our Google Print Publisher Program and Google Print Library Project."

Smith said two new initiatives were being udnertaken. The first allows publishers who sign up for its Print programme to provide a list of their books that, if scanned in a library context, will be immediately added to their account.

Publishers benefit from taking part in Print by: having the text of their books in Google searches; having searchers ("potential buyers") directed to their websites; being given reports by Google on the level of interest in books; and earning revenues through contextualised advertising.

However, for those publishers who have not got with the programme, Google is offering a temporary respite. Smith said: "Now all copyright holders – both Google Print partners and non-partners – can tell us which books they’d prefer that we not scan if we find them in a library. To allow plenty of time to review these new options, we won’t scan any in-copyright books from now until this November."

Google has been fielding criticism from many major US and UK publishers associations for some months. Sally Morris, chief executive of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), said she thought the latest proposal was far from adequate.

"Publishers should be asked to opt IN to the project (as they have been with Google Print for Publishers) and not to opt out," she told IWR. "I accept that this is a major task and see a potential role here for collective licensing agencies, such as CCC in the States and CLA/PLS in the UK. I very much hope that Google will reconsider as I'm sure no one wants a legal battle if it can be avoided."

Chief among the US objectors has been the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Association of American University Presses (AAUP), both of whom have called for a cessation of in-copyright book scanning by Google.

Pat Schroeder, president of the AAP, said: "Google's announcement does nothing to relieve the publishing industry's concerns. Google's procedure shifts the responsibility for preventing infringment to the copyright owner rather than the user, turning every principle of copyright law on its ear."