IDG News Service - Google's years-long attempt to create an online library and store with millions of books will face yet another legal hurdle with the filing of a class-action copyright infringement lawsuit by the American Society of Media Photographers.
The lawsuit, which the ASMP will file on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, makes similar claims as the ones filed in 2005 by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) on behalf of authors and publishers.
Essentially, the ASMP objects to Google's wholesale scanning of millions of books for its Google Books search engine without always getting permission from copyright owners. A difference is that the ASMP focuses on photographic and visual arts work in the books.
"Google has been involved in a massive campaign of unauthorized scanning and public display and distribution of works. A lot of those works are photographs and illustrations and they're doing it without authorization of the copyright owners," said Victor S. Perlman, the ASMP's general counsel and managing director. "I call that infringement."
Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, but the company's defense against the book scanning claim is that its activities are protected by the fair use principle because it only shows brief snippets of text in its search results.
In October 2008 Google, the Authors Guild and the AAP hammered out a controversial and complicated settlement proposal. Despite a revision, the measure has been roundly criticized by a variety of prominent individuals, companies and organizations, including the U.S. Department of Justice.
Judge Denny Chin from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York is currently evaluating the settlement proposal to decide whether to accept it. Critics say the proposal gives Google too much power over prices and over orphan works, which are copyright books whose authors or publishers cannot be found.
The ASMP decided to file its own lawsuit because Judge Chin denied the group's objections and motions to intervene in the Authors Guild and AAP case, Perlman said.
Last month I blogged about the partnerships you should build inside your organization. In keeping with that tone it's time we discussed expanding that partnership mentality to include some of the best technical resources you can ever get hold of, those are the ones that work in your neighboring cities, municipalities, counties, regions, townships etc. Come on folks, these people are already doing exactly the same things as you!
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