Wonderful Debate over Google Library
Tony Sanfilippo Says: October 20th, 2005 at 4:36 pmWhat about the effect this will have on the non-profit university press community? Mr. Lessig is free to give away all the content he wants, as long as it's his. Google is giving away our content. I'm not talking about snippets, I'm referring to the complete digital copies they are turning over to the participating libraries. Those libraries are among our best customers. They have most, if not all of what we've published in our 50 year history. They have all bought or subscribed to our digital content in the past. Now they won't need to. We are attempting to digitize our own out of print content so we can bring it back into print and offer digitally. Google is causing irreparable damage to that endeavour.
We have a mandate from the university-Be sustainable. Make less money, then publish fewer books. It wouldn't benefit ARLs or scholarship to have those books published by the for-profit sector instead. We work hard to make all of our content as affordable as possible. What Google is proposing is a wonderful thing, how they have chosen to do it is wrong and will ultimately hurt scholarship.
Tony Sanfilippo, Marketing and Sales Director, Penn State University Press
October 20th, 2005 at 5:54 pmBarbara Fister Says:
October 20th, 2005 at 8:50 pmTony, I have huge respect for university presses - and my last question was a barbed one meant to make people think but honestly I was thinking more in terms of the AAP's approach to these issues rather than that of the AAUP - though that organization, too, has expressed concern about the Google project. I personally (though not a lawyer) thought Google's approach was likely not legal, but given general reluctance of publishers to join Google Print, I found it a bold and interesting move.
Here's a question: say publishers win this round. Will it make UPs any more financially viable than if Google were to win? The library whose copy was digitized will own one digital copy, just the one, and other libraries won't presumably have access to it. Google having a copy on which they base their searchable version won't cut into revenue since it won't be possible to read much of anything online (less, in fact, that in Amazon's Search Inside). There's potentially some sales to be gained through readers discovering books. So while on principle it may make sense to say this is illegal, and a big, rich company shouldn't throw its weight around, I don't follow an argument that libraries will buy fewer books as a result.
I am concerned we're buying fewer books - because we are spending more on other things. I wrote a rather tongue-in-cheek piece for Library Journal about it when Northeastern announced it was closing. I'm not sure it shows, but I was enormously angry when I wrote it because I wasn't hearing much concern from academic librarians. And we need the university presses more than ever.
Barbara
Once again, it's not about selling books. It's about selling electronic copies, access, and indexing functions. Google is crowding out that market. That's what courts will consider. That's how the fair use argument falls.
As William Patry has pointed out, it's that extra copy to libraries that could complicate the fair use claims beyond reach.