Google Book Search

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Court: Sorry Authors, Google Can Scan Your Books

Snippets fall under fair use, court decides

(Newser) - Google has prevailed in a much-watched lawsuit filed by the Authors Guild, which argued that the search giant had violated writers' copyrights by scanning their books into its database without asking permission. US Circuit Judge Denny Chin agreed with Google's argument that its scans were covered under fair use,...

Google to Digitize 40M Pages of the British Library

That's 250K books over the next three years

(Newser) - A treatise on a stuffed hippopotamus, an 18th-century English primer for Danish sailors, and a description of the first engine-driven submarine are among 250,000 books to be made available online in a deal between Google and the British Library. The agreement, announced today, will let Internet users read, search,...

French Court to Google: Stop Scanning

Search giant must also pony up damages to publisher, industry

(Newser) - Beleaguered publishers won one against Google today as a French judge ordered the company to immediately stop scanning French books. The court sided with French publisher La Martiniere and other industry groups, who claimed in a lawsuit that the search giant’s book-scanning project violates copyrights. The company must also...

Microsoft, Amazon Unite Against Google Book Deal

(Newser) - Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo are ganging up against Google Books, trying to quash its settlement with publishers and authors, the Wall Street Journal reports. The settlement, which still needs court approval, would allow Google to offer works scanned off library shelves online for free, provided publishers get a cut of...

Feds Step Up Antitrust Probe of Google Books Deal

Antitrust investigation focuses on Google's settlement with publishers

(Newser) - Justice Department investigators have intensified their probe into a deal Google made with publishers last year to put millions of books online, the Wall Street Journal reports. Publishers have been formally asked to provide information relating to the deal, which critics charge violates antitrust laws by giving Google an effective...

Antitrust Concerns Prompt Google Books Probe

Deal gives Google exclusive chance to profit from texts, say critics

(Newser) - Federal lawyers are looking into whether a Google Book Search agreement with authors and publishers may violate antitrust laws, the New York Times reports. The settlement of a 2005 suit allows Google to put millions of scanned books online, charge viewers to read them, and share revenues with both groups....

Academics Fear Google's 'Orphan Books' Plan

Search king accused of rewriting copyright law to get access to out-of-print works

(Newser) - Google's plan to take millions of "orphan" books under its wing has critics crying foul, the New York Times reports. Google aims to make these out-of-print works—whose rights holders are unknown or cannot be found—part of its mammoth online bookstore and library, a plan some academics say...

Kindle Leads Boom in E-Books
 Kindle Leads Boom in E-Books 
Feb 7, 2009 4:09 AM CST

Kindle Leads Boom in E-Books

(Newser) - Amazon is widely rumored to be releasing a new version of its Kindle e-reader next week, and the e-book industry appears to be growing, Fortune reports. Sony is pushing its own device, Google has opened up access to millions of books online and for download to mobile devices like the...

Google Book Scans Go Slow at Research Libraries

No speedy way to digitize the rarest of volumes, search giant finding

(Newser) - In its ongoing effort to digitize the world's 50-100 million books for online book searching, Google is funding scanning efforts for rare volumes at leading libraries. The AP observed one such digitizing—the oldest Bible with Arabic type, scanned manually at 600 pages per day—which, to protect the work,...

German Publishers Launch Google Books Rival

Service won't show text snippets, which Germans think violate copyright

(Newser) - German publishers irked by Google Book Search's indexing of their books without paying a fee have launched a competing version of the same service. So far, reports Ars Technica, about 300 publishers have made about 8,000 German books available to searchers on Libreka.de, with up to 50,000...

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