Yahoo Rebuffs Google on Digital Books
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YahooÂs refusal to talk about its efforts to create digital copies of books is another setback for Google as it prepares to fight a copyright infringement suit.
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(InfoWorld) - Google has expanded its controversial book search service to allow people to download whole copies of books in PDF format to their computers, with the ability to print them out. The feature will go live Wednesday at theÂ service's Web site, said Adam Smith, group product manager of Google Book Search and Google Scholar. The books available for download will only be those that are in the public domain and thus not protected by copyright, Smith said. Until now, people have been able to read these public-domain books on the Google Book Search Web site, but not download and print them, he said. Google will not allow downloading of copyrighted books, not even those for which it has obtained permission from the copyright holders to display their full text, Smith said. The vast majority of the public-domain books available for download have been scanned as part of the library project of the Google Book Search service, Smith said. For the project,Â Google is scanningÂ portions of the collections of some of the world's largest academic libraries, including Google partners Harvard University, Stanford University, and Oxford University. However, critics say Google can't scan copyrighted books it obtains from the libraries unless it gets permission from the copyright holders. The issue is at the center ofÂ two separate lawsuits brought against GoogleÂ last year, one by The Authors Guild and three authors, and another one by The Association of American Publishers on behalf of five of its members: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Pearson Education, Penguin Group USA, Simon & Schuster, and John Wiley & Sons.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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Yahoo rejects a takeover bid of more than $40bn from computer software giant Microsoft saying it is too low.
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Google Challenges Amazon with Book Search  Google has quietly launched a new book search service which is predicted to rival Google publishing partner and Internet book retailer Amazon.com. Accoding to a Rueters report Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be holding a press conference on Thursday to demonstrate the ...
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(InfoWorld) - Legal experts are split in their evaluation of Google's defense strategy in two copyright-infringement lawsuits, particularly regarding the company's arm-twisting attempts to extract confidential information from uninvolved competitors. Some view Google's tactics as aggressive, unusual and ultimately ineffective, while others see them as part of a fairly standard defense in copyright litigation. Google sent subpoenas to Amazon.com, Yahoo and Microsoft demanding they provide it with information about their book-scanning activities, a move that raised eyebrows because those companies are among its biggest rivals. Google plans to use this information in its defense in two lawsuits filed last year. The suits allege that Google's massive project to scan, make searchable and store digital copies of millions of copyrighted library books without permission from the copyright owner is illegal. Google is also scanning books in the public domain. Google argues that its scanning is protected under the fair use principle, which allows for limited use of copyright material, because it only displays text snippets of copyrighted books' content in response to queries in its Book Search service. That overall argument, along with the subpoena tactic, demonstrates Google is willing to mount an atypical and pugnacious defense, said Lee Bromberg, a partner at Bromberg & Sunstein LLP, a firm that specializes in intellectual property litigation. "This [subpoena action] isn't par for the course at all in this type of case," he said. With the subpoenas, Google is trying to argue that if its competitors are scanning books, it follows that Google is acting legally, according to Bromberg. "But I don't think it's evidence of that at all, and I think it's out of line for Google to do this," Bromberg said. This type of subpoena is usually used to get evidence from an uninvolved third party that may have relevant information about the litigation. For example, it would make sense for Google to subpoena information from one of its business partners, or from a partner of one of the plaintiffs, Bromberg said. "Those partners might possess documents that could be relevant to sorting out the issues between Google and the plaintiff publishers here. But that doesn't seem to be the case," Bromberg said. Wendy Seltzer, a Fellow at the Harvard University Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and an expert on Internet law and intellectual property, said the subpoenas might be part of a more conventional defense, in which Google will try to prove that book-scanning isn't hurting copyright owners nor the publishing market. Google's ultimate goal will be to have the court say its activities are protected by the fair use principle, which allows for limited use of copyright material, she said. Already Yahoo and Amazon.com have refused to comply with the subpoenas and have indicated in court filings that they are determined to stand their ground against what they consider an inappropriate and overreaching request from Google. Microsoft declined to comment when asked how it has responded or plans to respond to the subpoena. What's clear is that the subpoena standoff could further complicate and lengthen an already complex case that, barring an unexpected settlement, could drag on for years. After the refusals from Yahoo and Amazon.com, the ball is in Google's court. Google has the option to file a motion with the court to compel its two rivals to comply with the subpoena request. If the court were to grant that motion to compel, Amazon.com and Yahoo would probably have a choice to escalate the matter to an appeals court. "That [the subpoena clash] in itself can become a protracted battle," said Sheldon Klein, an attorney specializing in intellectual property and a partner at Arent Fox PLLC in Washington, D.C. Google declined to answer specific questions, providing only a prepared statement via e-mail that characterized the subpoena and objection process as "a common part of ongoing litigation." It intends to speak with Yahoo and Amazon.com over their concerns, Google said. Amazon.com declined to comment on whether it is holding talks with Google, but Yahoo doesn't foresee much chance of arriving at some middle ground. "Google will quickly learn we're not interested in some lesser compromise position. Our position is that we're not going to produce documents in response to the subpoena," said Reggie Davis, who is associate general counsel at Yahoo and manages litigation for the company. Like Bromberg, Davis finds Google's subpoena action surprising and aggressive, in large part because Yahoo doesn't even have its own book-scanning project. Its activities in this area are limited to its participation in a collective effort known as the Open Content Alliance, which doesn't scan copyrighted books without permission from the copyright owner. "It seems to us that their approach is completely different from ours, so we're surprised they'd want to get information from us about our approach, which is to get permission before copying. And it seems to us to be completely irrelevant and not particularly helpful to Google's argument or justification for their approach," Davis said. The plaintiffs in the Book Search cases -- the Association of American Publishers (AAP), acting on behalf of five of its members, and the Authors Guild Inc. and three authors -- aren't the only ones questioning the copyright legality of a Google search service. Others are suing Google in the U.S. and abroad for similar reasons over its news, image and video search engines.
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer rebuffed&#160;Google&#39;s accusations&#160;that an acquisition of Yahoo would be anticompetitive.
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Google Inc. has lost a bid to  overturn a Belgian court order that requires it to publish an  earlier ruling forbidding it from reproducing article snippets  on its news amalgamation service.
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Put off by restrictions Google and Microsoft want to place on new digital collections, several major libraries are instead signing on with a group that aims to make the materials broadly available.
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Google Inc. on Saturday published on  its Belgian website a court order which forbids the Internet  search engine to reproduce snippets of Belgian press on its  news amalgamation service.
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Google made classic literary works available for free download in printable format on Wednesday as part of its controversial quest to make the world's books available online.
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New York: Popular internet search engine Google has reached an agreement with four universities and one public library to scan their books and make them available the digitised contents of the same, aiming to challenge competitors Yahoo and Microsoft.
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The new feature will direct users to both paid and free digital content on publishersÂ Web sites, but will not directly generate revenue for Google.
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Google Inc. has partnered with five of the world&#39;s leading libraries, including those at Stanford and Harvard, to digitally scan their collections so that the books can be searched, and in many cases read, online free of charge.
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For those long term search marketers who have been taking advantage of Yahoo&#8217;s generosity of allowing grandfathered bids below $.10 from campaigns which were carried over from Goto.com and Overture, those days are over.  According to an email sent to a Webmasterworld member, Yahoo will not be honoring the old Goto.com grandfathered $.01 and $.05 [...]
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Internet search giant Google, quiet since going public in August, introduced a feature Wednesday that lets users search through pages of books online.
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By Stephen Castle  One of Google's most popular services came under threat yesterday when a court banned the search engine from reproducing articles from Belgian newspapers and opened the door to similar challenges elsewhere in Europe.
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Internet search giant Google has announced plans to digitise millions of library books and make them searchable online. The Silicon Valley firm said it was working with the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the