The Google Books lawsuit proceeds apace. paidContent and CNet report that, in Google’s latest filing, the search giant is appealing the court’s decision to certify class action status for the Authors Guild. Google argues that the majority of writers actually approve of its scanning (58% according to a Google-commissioned survey), and that its scanning to provide search capability is a transformative fair use. Google suggests that even if the court rules it is not fair use in general, it will still have to decide on a case by case basis whether each individual book is or not. Is Google...

  Google's settlement with publishers is an important step toward making millions of rare and out-of-print books available online. Google’s deal to settle a seven-year conflict with five major publishers over the search giant’s book-scanning initiative is a milestone in the publishing industry’s grinding transition from print books to e-books. The pact, struck by Google and the Association of American Publishers (AAP), does not address the underlying question of whether Google violated copyright law by scanning millions of books over the last several years. Both sides, apparently weary of legal wrangling, have agreed to disagree on that point. The deal also doesn’t affect an...

PaidContent has a copy of Google’s motion for summary judgment, and a summary of what it says. Google makes the case that its scanning of all those copyrighted books qualifies as fair use, and cites numerous examples of beneficial outcomes that have come out of the availability of that information to be searched. It also insists that inclusion in the search has been beneficial, not harmful, to sales of the books it has scanned, and even well-known literary agencies like William Morris recognize that. The Authors Guild was expected to file its own motion later today, but I haven’t...

On The New Republic, David Bell takes a five-page look at some of the implications e-books have for the future of libraries. In light of the New York Public Library’s ongoing plan to move many of its books away from its main branch into offsite storage with 24-hour advance request required, Bell wonders to what extent libraries really need to keep books around anymore, and what the changing role of the library might mean in years to come. One thing Bell points out is that millions of public-domain book titles are available through the auspices of organizations like Project...

A really great article by Jeremy Greenfield in Digital Book World today.  It discusses, among other things, the economics of Google Books and why it failed.  Zola looks like a hit to me.  Read the whole article. A new bookselling start-up funded by authors and other investors is forming partnerships with publishers and independent booksellers and aims to replace the Google eBooks re-seller program as the go-to platform for indies interested in selling e-books. Oh, and the company plans on taking on Amazon, too. Zola Books is a New York-based start-up that has raised $1.3 million from investors, including well-known authors like...

On MIT’s Technology Review, Nicholas Carr takes an in-depth look at the creation of the Digital Public Library of America, an attempt at a non-commercial universal electronic library (which I also mentioned last month) that hopes to provide universal access to as much of human knowledge as it can. Carr first looks at Google’s attempt to create Google Book Search, and the negotiated settlement that was thrown out as too overreaching. Though Google is moving ahead with its legal defense, the search market has shifted toward social networking meaning that a book search might not be as attractive to Google...

It is most important that discovery continues as it happened in the past.  Some stuff is better bought in person because of the touch factor.  That's why Jobs started the Apple Stores even though he faced a lot of opposition from peoople who thought it was backward looking.  Need bookstore for that experience, in children's books, for example.  You also use a bookstore to be surprised.  That serendipity should be protected but we are not headed there because of unfair competitive practives. The Justice Department is weighing in on the side of unfair practices.  The Justice Department's weighing in against Apple,...

Judge Denny Chin has dealt Google a setback today in the Google Books scanning lawsuit, ruling (PDF) against Google’s arguments that the Author’s Guild should not be allowed to stand in for its individual members and that the three individual plaintiffs should be denied class-action status. Google had argued that individual plaintiff participation would be necessary to decide on issues of fair use, but the judge didn’t agree. Google had also argued that the three plaintiffs weren’t sufficiently representative of all classes of book publishing as a whole, but Chin felt books could be considered by category—they didn’t...

That's what Good E-Reader is reporting today.  According to the article one of the selling points of the reader was its ability to connect directly to Google Books.  Now this has been disabled.  They say that this is because Google Books ahs now been integrated into the Google Play platform and so the Sony Reader Store points to invalid links.  Evidently this also affects the iRiver Story HD. So who is to blame for the inability to download free books from Google Books on the Sony PRS-T1? Basically this is all on Sony to incorporate the changing landscape of technology on...

PaidContent has a piece by Jeff John Roberts looking at the current status of the Authors Guild vs. Google court case involving Google’s actions in scanning millions of copyrighted e-books. The case is moving slowly forward with new motions presented today, that Judge Chin has promised to rule on later. The Authors Guild wants Chin to okay its request for class-action status to let the US’s writers sue together. Google argues that the Guild doesn’t have standing to sue on authors’ behalf, and the suits should be brought by individual authors who feel they have been wronged—and that the...

The Bookseller reports that Google is about to launch an e-book store in France, as part of its Google Play entertainment portal. The search giant has emailed publisher partners of its Google Livres books search with an offer of a contract amendment that would give Google 48% of the price of e-books sold directly to consumers, as well as an unspecified share of a 52% margin on sales through retailers. 48%, huh? That’s quite a bit more than Apple and Amazon have asked for. I wonder if anyone will kick up a fuss about that. Regardless, this is Google...

That's the title of an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.  Here's an excerpt: Google has been quietly slowing down its book-scanning work with partner libraries, according to librarians involved with the vast Google Books digitization project. But what that means for the company's long-term investment in the work remains unclear. Google was not willing to say much about its plans. "We've digitized more than 20 million books to date and continue to scan books with our library partners," a Google spokeswoman told The Chronicle in an e-mailed statement. Librarians at several of Google's partner institutions, including...