As part of its legal fight against publisher and author groups suing it over its book-scanning practices, Google sent subpoenas to Microsoft, Amazon.com, and Yahoo to gather information about their participation in similar book-archiving operations.
Yahoo called Google’s subpoena a “brazen attempt to pry into its trade secrets” in snubbing the request. Amazon similarly called the subpoena “overly broad and unduly burdensome” in October about two and a half weeks after receiving the legal missive from Google.
The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers have both sued Google for its book-scanning practices. Neither organization approves of the search advertising company’s opt-out policy, requiring the copyright holder to ask Google not to scan or make any part of a book available.
Google has long retorted that such scanning is no different than its indexing of websites, and the presentation of snippets of text in response to a search is protected under accepted standards of fair use. Having to search out every single copyright holder for permission would make the project untenable in Google’s opinion.
But if Google wants to convince the court of its good and law-abiding actions, Google may have to do so without the help of its competitors. It’s an interesting reversal from early 2006, where Google fought off a Department of Justice subpoena; now Google is on the other side of the fight, and probably doesn’t care much for it.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
