Legal Research

20,000 Pubishers in Google . . .!?

Teleread is reporting that a Reuters "interview with Santiago de la Mora, head of Google?s book partnerships in Europe, Google has announced that it has doubled the number of publishers participating in its book-scan program over the past year, from 10,000 to 20,000. These publishers allow Google to scan the contents of books they publish and offer up snippets of those books to searchers."

Among those publishers that have signed up is Bertelsmann?s Random House, ?the world?s largest non-factual publisher.? The article does not state whether these publishers? participation is expected to have any effect on the pending publishing-industry litigation against Google for scanning library books that are still under copyright protection."

When asked whether Google was considering introducing an e-reading device to compete with Sony or Amazon?s offerings, de la Mora said that Google was watching the market but had no plans for such a device of its own at this time. ?We?re promoting on line the sale of physical books. That?s the offering. Having said that, we?re always open to the evolutions of the marketplace.?

Very interesting. Do you have 20,000 current publishers in your library?

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on October 26, 2008 (boomark / email).