What’s up with Google Books?
Posted by susankmiller on September 25, 2009
My co-author, Shelley Rodrigo, just found our textbook, the Wadsworth Guide to Research, on Google Books. Hmm. I can’t decide how I feel about that. Flattered? Offended? It certainly seems like a violation of copyright. Isn’t it?
And a Google search for our book brings up the Google Books link on the front page. Surprise, surprise.
Apparently our publisher, Cengage, along with many others, has filed a lawsuit against Google for copyright infringement. Now publishers around the world are getting into the fight. Thankfully the US Register of Copyrights is on the authors’ side. Am I missing something here? Is there a valid argument for allowing Google to scan and make millions of books available for free? Google claims that they’re like a sort of “online library.” This seems like a flimsy defense.
I guess I understand the whole Napster issue on a different level now.
