Google Watch

The Googloids are having a hard time understanding what “copyright” means.

Google Inc. (GOOG) faces a lawsuit by the Association of American Publishers, or AAP, over the company’s plans to digitally copy and distribute copyrighted works under its Google Print program announced last year.
The lawsuit, which was filed after lengthy discussions broke down between AAP and Google’s top management, seeks a court declaration that Google commits infringement when it scans entire books covered by copyright and a court order preventing it from doing so without permission of the copyright owner.
In a press release Wednesday, U.S. book publishing trade association AAP said the suit was filed on behalf of five major publisher members of the group – McGraw-Hill Cos. (MHP), Pearson Plc’s (PSO) Pearson Education, Penguin Group (USA), Viacom Inc’s (VIA,VIAB) Simon & Schuster, and John Wiley & Sons Inc. (JWA).
In the Google Print program, the company hopes to create an online, searchable database by scanning and digitizing millions of published books from the collections of three major academic libraries – Stanford University, Harvard University and the University of Michigan.
Oxford University and the New York Public Library are also participating in the project, but are only making available works in the public domain.
The lawsuit disclosed on Wednesday follows a Tuesday editorial in The Wall Street Journal by Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt. In the editorial, Schmidt outlined the Google Print plan, stressing that copyright holders are free to send the company a list of titles they don’t want to include in the Google Print Index.
“Recently, some members of the publishing industry who believe this program violates copyright law have been fighting to stop it. We respectfully disagree with their conclusions, on both the meaning of the law and the spirit of a program which, in fact, will enhance the value of each copyright,” wrote Schmidt.
Despite consenting that its members understand how useful the search engine could be, AAP said it isn’t convinced the program properly compensates authors and publishers.
“The bottom line is that under its current plan Google is seeking to make millions of dollars by freeloading on the talent and property of authors and publishers,” said AAP President and former Colorado Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder.

Google will also report earnings tomorrow, however there’s one major caveat. This will be the first time Google reports pro-forma earnings as well as GAAP earnings. Wall Street’s consensus is for $1.36 a share. The pro-forma earnings will exclude tax benefits and stock-based compensation. Most analysts back out the stock-based compensation, but the community is divided on tax benefits. This is all rather confusing, and it won’t be cleared up tomorrow.
One final Google note. Due to legal pressure, the company is changing the name of its Gmail in Britain to Google Mail. The company never bothered to see if the name was trademarked in Europe. Which they could have found out by Googling it.

Posted by on October 19th, 2005 at 3:49 pm


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