Calling all bloggers, search engine giants Google needs you to put your
communications skills to work protecting its controversial Book Search service.
Google believes that bloggers can challenge the editors of titles that carry
stories that misrepresent
Google
Book Search to ensure the service survives its legal challenges.
Google
Groups Book Support Book Discovery is a online mailing list for its
Book Search supporters. "We hope you, our supporters, can help clear the air
when misleading articles are published," said Jen Grant, Google Product
Marketing Manager said in the group's first posting.
Grant said the idea was formed after Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig
made a video presentation in support of
Google
Book Search . Lessig is also the founder of the online copyright
alternative Creative Commons. Alexander Macgillivray, senior product and
intellectual property counsel for Google represented Creative Commons in his
previous role as a litigator with US law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich &
Rosati.
In her posting Grant implores bloggers and Google Book Search supporters to,
"we encourage you to write a letter to the editor, post a comment or blog about
the facts," if they see articles that, in Google's opinion, misrepresent the
Book Search service. Grant also indicates that the Authors Guild
(
click here for more information on Authors Guild) and
novelists such as Susan Cheever do not understand the US Fair Use laws, which
according to Google, allows it to copy a book and make some to the text
available online.
The Authors Guild is suing Google in a class action which calls for Google to
end its digitisation of library books, which it describes as a "brazen violation
of copyright law." The main sticking point is that by digitising library books,
Google has not allowed authors and publishers to chose whether they want their
work to be incorporated in to Google Book Search. Authors believe it is their
right alone to decide whether their work should be digitised.
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