Many thanks to those of you who took the time to write notes of
support about Google Print. There have been some incorrect
characterizations about this program in the press, and we want to
be sure you have a clear understanding of the program, and of your
options relating to it.
The goal of the Google Print Library Project is to create an
electronic, full-text card catalog of books (just as we've done with
web pages). Our goal is to help people discover books online, not
read them online; a user who finds a copyrighted books that was
scanned through the Library Project can't view even a single page
from this book, unless the copyright holder has given us explicit
permission through the Publisher Program to show more. At most
we show three examples of where the user's search term appears in
the text, along with basic bibliographic info and links to online
booksellers and libraries.
Here's what an in-copyright book scanned from a library looks like
on Google Print:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/LibraryProject_screenshot-745613.JPG
It's also important to bear in mind that, just like web search, any
copyright holder can ask to have their books excluded from the
Library Project by following these instructions:
http://print.google.com/googleprint/publisher_library.html#options3
We realize that you may have more questions about the Library
Project, and we're always happy to answer them. You can read
more about our thoughts on our blog:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/google-print-and-authors-guild.html
or can check out what other folks are saying about
Google Print: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/buzz-about-google-print-and-lawsuit.html.
Feel free to email us at print-support@google.com.
Once again, thanks for writing. We hope and expect that continued
dialogue with the publishing community will help us build a
program that benefits everyone.
Sincerely,
The Google Print Team
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
A message from Google Print
Posted by Steve Karmazenuk at Tuesday, September 27, 2005