Google vs. the Authors Guild

The Authors Guild on Tuesday filed suit against Google, charging that the Google Print Library program constitutes massive copyright infringement.

The program involves scanning books from libraries and universities to make the texts searchable through Google's engine. Google intends to sell advertisements on those pages.

The Guild, and others, had previously criticized the program, and Google last month said would halt the initiative temporarily and make changes to its Google Print Publisher Program, in which books are scanned at the request of the publisher so people can view excerpts.

The search leviathan defended its program in a company blog posting, saying that it "respects copyright" and arguing that the program is protected under the "fair use" doctrine.

While Google has taken some heat recently from the blogging community, the "information wants to be free" attitude seemed to be winning the day, with most commenters backing the search engine.


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