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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Put off by restrictions that 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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The changes are in response to a complaint by Google that a feature of the operating system is anticompetitive.
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I noted yesterday that there seems to be some media fanfare surrounding Amazon's launch of a digital book tablet. It occurred to me that the markets surrounding media such as books, music and movies bear more than a passing resemblance to financial markets, and as such, perhaps they were amenable to a similar method of analysis. Being the owner of a sizable collection of paper books, this led me to consider the drawbacks one faces when Digital Rights Management restrictions are put in place.
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Description: This week, the search engine Google announced plans to digitize millions of library books and make them searchable online.
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Google has launched a service for book publishers that will make book contents searchable through the web. Google Print is open to publishers of all sizes.
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Blog: Yahoo shareholders reject censorship, executive pay proposals, re-elect all board members at shareholder meeting
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InfoWorld - Yahoo Inc. shareholders voted down a proposal that would have forced management to adopt stronger policies regarding government attempts to limit Internet access and to curtail freedom of speech in countries where Yahoo operates.
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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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'This is not about First Amendment rights, it is about protecting children' The world's largest porn studio says that Google and Yahoo! should "erect stronger barriers" to keep porn away from the world's children.â¦
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Several major research libraries have rebuffed offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books, instead signing on with a nonprofit effort.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft will expand its books search engine by including copyrighted works in its index for the first time starting Thursday evening. Microsoft has obtained permission for all the copyrighted books included in the Live Search Books service, said Danielle Tiedt, general manager of the Live Search selection team. By taking this approach, Microsoft wants to avoid locking horns over copyright issues with authors and publishers. Its rival, Google, faces two copyright-infringement lawsuits in the U.S. over itsÂ decision to scan copyrighted booksÂ without always obtaining permission from copyright owners. Tiedt acknowledges that Google's wholesale scanning of copyrighted works in library collections will give it a larger database of books. But she argues that by working with publishers and obtaining their permission, Microsoft will be able to offer a better experience to users. At launch tonight, Microsoft's service will feature "tens of thousands" of copyrighted books in its index, from publishers including McGraw-Hill Companies, Simon & Schuster, and Yale University Press, Tiedt said. She declined to be more specific about the number of titles Microsoft has been permitted to scan. Publishers decide what percentage of a copyrighted book Microsoft can show to users. If user decides to buy a book, Microsoft will offer links to external sites selling it, such as online retailers like Amazon.com or publisher Web stores. In the results list, Microsoft will also show users how frequently their search terms appear in each book so that they can get a sense of how relevant each work is to their search topic. Microsoft will also show information about the books, such as length, publisher, author, publishing date, table of contents and summaries. Microsoft launched Live Search Books in December of last year, offering only books in the public domain. In addition to including copyrighted books, Microsoft will also unveil enhancements to the service's user interface tonight. Google launched its Book Search service in 2004 and initially sought permission from copyright owners before scanning their books. It later modified its approach, scanning copyrighted books without permission as well. Google argues that it is protected by the fair use principle because it only displays short text snippets from copyrighted books it scanned without permission. Critics say the very act of scanning and storing a digital copy of a book without permission constitutes infringement. Google also scans public-domain works. Â
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Controversial book search engine can be co-branded and embedded on publishers' sites.
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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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(InfoWorld) - Yahoo Inc. shareholders voted down a proposal that would have forced management to adopt stronger policies regarding government attempts to limit Internet access and to curtail freedom of speech in countries where Yahoo operates. Shareholders voted only 15.2 percent of Yahoo shares in favor of this proposal at the company's annual shareholders' meeting on Tuesday. Yahoo's management had recommended that shareholders vote against this anticensorship proposal, which was presented by the New York City Comptroller's Office on behalf of the New York City Pension Funds. The organization, which owned about $124 million in Yahoo shares as of last Friday, also saw a similar proposal defeated last month at Google Inc.'s shareholders meeting. Yahoo, Google and other Internet companies are under pressure by shareholders and human rights groups to resist demands from governments to censor search-engine results that these governments find politically objectionable. Critics also want Internet companies to refuse governments' requests to turn over members' information when the intention behind those requests is to persecute otherwise law-abiding journalists and dissidents. The defeated proposal would have required Yahoo to implement a series of policies, such as not hosting individuals' data in countries where political dissent is considered a crime. The proposal also called for Yahoo to not engage in self-censorship and to use all legal means to resist censorship demands, complying with them only if legally bound to do so. In recommending shareholders vote "no," Yahoo said in the meeting's proxy statement that the proposal would give the company "insufficient flexibility" to respond to legal requirements in the countries where it operates. Yahoo also said it shares many of the proposals' concerns and objectives, but that its presence is a positive force toward reform in countries where speech and press freedom is limited. The company believes that there is only so much pressure that the private sector can apply to foreign governments, and that it's more powerful to establish bilateral and multilateral dialogues about political and human rights issues to bring about change. Yahoo also listed in the proxy statement a series of steps it is taking to address Internet freedom problems, including participating in policy discussions with private sector peers, governments, universities and other organizations. Yahoo has also created a team made up of Yahoo employees to coordinate and support Yahoo's efforts at addressing privacy and free expression issues.
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Big Goo's spurning Yahoo!'s business? Don't believe it.
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Online search leader Google Inc. is becoming more bookish. Expanding a program introduced last year, Google is inviting publishers to include entire books in its index, enabling people to peak at the contents before making a decision on whether to buy.