Publishers battle Google book index

Five major publishing firms filed suit against Internet search giant Google Inc. yesterday to stop the company from creating a digital index of millions of copyrighted books. The lawsuit, coming weeks after a group of book authors also sued Google, sets up a legal showdown over the limits of intellectual property law in the age of global computer networks.

The publishers -- the McGraw-Hill Cos., Pearson Education Inc., Penguin Group (USA) Inc., Simon & Schuster Inc., and John Wiley & Sons Inc. -- are trying to halt the Google Print Library Project, which Google unveiled in December 2004. The project aims to make digital copies of millions of books stored in the libraries of major universities, including Harvard. Google will then use its search technology to create an index of all of the text in each book, and make this index available on the Internet at no charge. The result would be the world's largest and most powerful index of books. A user could instantly search millions of volumes for information on a particular topic, and receive a list of relevant books. The index would also display small portions of the text, to help a researcher decide if he or she has found the right book.

Google's plan outraged the Association of American Publishers, the trade group representing the nation's leading producers of books. The association's president, former Colorado Democratic congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, said that the Google Print Library Project is a blatant violation of copyright law.

''Traditional copyright has been that you can't make a full copy of somebody's work without their permission," Schroeder said.

In their lawsuit, filed in US District Court in New York, the publishers do not seek damages. Instead, they want the court to order an end to Google's digitizing of copyrighted books, and the destruction of any digital copies already made. The publishers accuse Google of trying to profit by ''massive, wholesale, and systematic copying of entire books still protected by copyright." They say that Google hopes the service will attract lots of new users to its website, thus allowing the company to increase its advertising revenue.

''They have a hell of a business model," Schroeder said. ''They're going to take everything you create, for free, and sell advertising around it."

Google already is spectacularly profitable, with most of its revenue generated by selling ads that appear on Google and many other websites. The company had revenue of nearly $1.4 billion in the second quarter of 2005, and net income of $342.8 million. News of the publishers' lawsuit did nothing to cool investors' ardor for Google stock. Shares rose $5.42 yesterday, to close at $308.70 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

In response to the lawsuit, Google argued that an online index of books amounts of ''fair use," a legal concept that allows the reproduction of small portions of copyrighted works.

''Creating an easy-to-use index of books is fair use under copyright law and supports the purpose of copyright: to increase the awareness and sales of books directly benefiting copyright holders," said Google's general counsel David Drummond. ''This short-sighted attempt to block Google Print works counter to the interests of not just the world's readers, but also the world's authors and publishers."

The Google Print Library Project website said that publishers who don't want their work included in the index can contact Google and ask for the removal of individual titles.

Jonathan Zittrain, holder of the chair in Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University and a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, said he's rooting for Google to win the lawsuit. But he added that from a legal perspective, the case is a tossup, with good arguments on both sides.

''As a matter of legal doctrine, this is a case on which reasonable people can disagree," Zittrain said. But he believes that Google's project would provide substantial benefits to the public.

At the Harvard University Library, director Sidney Verba said the lawsuit was unfortunate but might at least provide clear legal guidance on the digitizing of copyrighted books.

''I'm sorry that it had to go to court," said Verba, ''but I'd love to see some legal decision about it to clear things up, because it is right now terribly uncertain."

Even before the publishers filed suit, Google was under fire from book authors. Last month, the Authors Guild, representing 8,000 writers, filed a class-action lawsuit seeking monetary damages against the company.

Authors Guild president Nick Taylor called Google's program ''a plain and brazen violation of copyright law."

Another of the Internet's biggest search services, Yahoo Inc., also is creating an online index of books. But Yahoo's Open Content Alliance will not include copyrighted work without obtaining permission of the copyright holders.

In their lawsuit against Google, the book publishers cite Yahoo's program as an acceptable alternative.

''We've always worked directly with the owners of content to make that content available," said David Mandelbrot, Yahoo's vice president of search content. ''In our experience, that has not slowed us down too much, and it has helped us to build strong relationships that have helped us in other parts of our business."

Yahoo said that it would begin offering its index of books by year's end, and have about 18,000 books available by the end of 2006.

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.