An event to be held in New York will have Google in attendance, along with representatives from the Authors Guild and the American Association of Publishers.
On November 17th, the New York Public Library, a participant in Google Print’s scanning project, will play host along with Wired Magazine for “The Battle Over Books,” which should be a lot of fun for the audience.
Both the Authors Guild and the AAP have sued Google over its print project, citing copyright infringement. Google has claimed its program falls within fair use doctrines, and will help bring thousands of books to the attention of people who would never discover them otherwise.
Google will send general counsel David Drummond to the festivities. The authors have their president, Nick Taylor, attending, while the publishers will be represented by their VP for Legal Governmental Affairs, Allan Adler.
Among the other panelists will be well-known legal mind Lawrence Lessig, along with Wired editor in chief Chris Anderson and executives with the New York Public Library. The NYPL summarized the forthcoming event in its post about Google Print:
Sounds like a win-win-win-win for readers, authors, publishers, and libraries alike, right? But as we have seen with other media migrating to the Internet, such a project raises a number of questions about intellectual property rights, fair use, piracy, access, ownership, distribution, compensation, and control. This fall, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers filed lawsuits against Google, citing massive copyright infringement.
The NYPL and WIRED Magazine present a provocative discussion about the competing interests and issues raised by the Google Print Library Project, and whether a universal digital repository of our collective knowledge is in our future.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
