Google Books has been accused of violating copyright laws by The Author’s Guild and the Association of American Publishers.  Arguments against Google Books focus on the following two principles: Google Books does not get the publisher’s permission to use a book and Google is profiting on a derivative, which is not fair use.  Google, on the other hand, argues that it does not need permission because the Google Books Project is fair use.

On Permission 

                The Google Books Project operates on an opt-out policy; publishers who do not wish to participate only need to explicitly tell Google they do not wish to be part of the project before Google removes their work.  Google feels that it is justified in using this policy for two reasons:  Google’s web search and image search both operate under the same policy and permission from an author is not needed under fair use. The main dispute is whether or not Google Books truly is fair use.

Argument By Analogy 

                The argument that Google Books is analogous to Google Image’s is one of many analogous arguments built around former court cases.  The court case, Kelly v. Arriba Soft, decided that Arriba Soft was justified in displaying thumbnail transformations of images in its search engine and that it was fair use. Google Images offers the same type of image search service in Google Image Search.  When Google compares its image search engine to Google Books, it is making the argument that the Google Book’s project is merely transforming books into snippets that the searcher can use to determine their interest in a book, and is therefore, by their transformation, a fair use.

               Two similar analogies that have been made in Google Book’s defense involve property laws. One of these analogies argues that maps are a useful derivation from property that would be impossible if it weren’t fair use. The map is a transformation of property into another form that allows other people to know where places are, similar to how Google Books allows people to know where particular information can be found.  The other property compares Google Books’ right to scan books to the right for airplanes to fly over farmers’ properties in the 1970’s without their permission. Again, the argument centers on the necessity of fair use to provide protection of the service and its innovation in order for the service to exist.

Argument In Opposition 

                The case UMG Recordings v. MP3.com established that MP3.com’s “space-shifting” technology was not fair use. MP3.com allowed registered users to register their CD’s to a database that the user could then reach from any computer on a network without the CD. The use was controversial because MP3.com copied these CD’s into a database in order to provide the service to its users. This direct copying was ruled to be copyright infringement.

                The main issue in this argument is whether Google Books is a transformative work. If Google Books is a transformative work then Google Books is not a direct copy. Scanning books is necessary to produce snippets, but copyright books are never the product of Google Books. Snippets are derived from the copyright material to produce searchable material. The size of these snippets can even be determined by the publisher or owner of the copyright material.