by Search Copywriter
Y. Sulaiman
Y. Sulaiman
From its status as a news provider/publisher to online videos, copyright concerns have been par for the course in Google's day-to-day activities for some years now. But perhaps no Google initiative has proved more intractable that its Book Search project, which aims to digitise all the world's books and make them available online, bringing Google one step closer in its mission "to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful".Since its October 2008 settlement with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers (AAP), writers and publishers have certainly quietened down their justified furore over Google Book Search's copyright infringements. However, while the $125 million agreement will allow Google, authors and publishers to split between them any revenue raised by Book Search, it still doesn't address the problem of 'orphan books' - those that are still under copyright but have no clear owner.
It's this point that the US branch of Oxford University Press - the world's biggest university publisher - is taking issue with. OUP USA has accepted the Authors Guild and AAP settlement, but it's urging Congress to prevent Mountain View from gaining exclusive rights to orphan works. Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, its president Tim Barton said: "Making [orphan works] available again is a clear public good. Google's having exclusive rights to use them, as enshrined in the current settlement, however, is not."If the parties to the settlement cannot themselves solve this major problem, then at a minimum Congress should pass orphan-works legislation that gives others the same rights as Google - an essential step if Google is not to gain an unfair advantage. Despite significant advocacy, Congress has failed to legislate on this issue for 20 years; we at Oxford hope the spectre of Google having exclusive rights to use orphan works will spur heightened public debate and Congress to immediate action."
He added that works which are not online are "invisible" to students. And while many books published within the last decade are available electronically, he said that the vast majority of work published since 1923 was "effectively out of reach" to today's student.
Barton's comments add one more chapter into the drawn-out Google Book Search saga and, despite the Authors Guild/AAP deal, it's not over yet. Earlier this year, a New York judge added four months onto the original May 5 deadline given to authors who want to opt out of the settlement. What's more, in April the New York Times revealed that an anti-trust investigation into the deal was being carried out by the US Justice Department. And until all these strands are brought together - and officials take measures against a possible Google monopoly of orphan works - there will still be a question mark over whether Google Book Search can find a platform that will please more people than it offends.
