And Then There’s This

October 20th, 2005 · No Comments
by Booksquare

The Association of American Publishers has also filed suit against Google over the Google library project. The suit notes, among other things, that there is

“continuing, irreparable and imminent harm publishers are suffering … due to Google’s willful (copyright) infringement to further its own commercial purposes.”

If we were the type to read carefully (rather than being the type rushing this post because we should have been showered and shampooed by now), we would note that, technically, there hasn’t been continuing and irreparable harm to the publishers as of yet (the jury is still out on the imminent — such is the beauty of imminence, you can spend weeks anticipating it).

Oops, our mistake. There was some past harm:

Patricia Schroeder, president and CEO of the Association of American Publishers, said Wednesday that the publishers’ lawsuit followed months of negotiations with Google.

“We spent so much time on this I think half of our board ended up having trouble with their families because of canceling vacations,” she said.

Yes, that could be a serious problem. We still believe this project can only do good and that publishers and authors are not using their wide-vision glasses. In the meantime, we wait with bated breath for someone, anyone, to ask the suing parties the obvious questions, starting with, “What’s your plan to make these works available to the public in a commercially viable manner?”

File Under: Square Pegs