Authors’ Guild vs. Google Print

As has been reported elsewhere, the Authors’ Guild is suing Google Print. The basis of the suit is that:

“This is a plain and brazen violation of copyright law,” said the Authors Guild president, Nick Taylor. “It’s not up to Google or anyone other than the authors, the rightful owners of these copyrights, to decide whether and how their works will be copied.”

The lawsuit demanded the court block Google from copying the books so the authors would not “suffer irreparable harm” by being deprived of the right to control reproduction of their works.

In its retort, Google claims that:

it only shows brief snippets of pages containing searched-for phrases unless it has permission from owners or copyright laws allow.

“We regret that this group chose to sue us over a programme that will make millions of books more discoverable to the world, especially since any copyright holder can exclude their books from the program,” said the company’s product management vice-president, Susan Wojcicki.

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