The question of literary property

• Lynne Spender
• Meanjin

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25 June 2009Perhaps I am optimistic by nature, but when Google first announced that it was planning to digitise the world’s books and create the greatest library ever, I was enthusiastic.

I thought it was an example of digital technology doing for our generation—and those that follow—what print technology did for the generations of readers and writers after its introduction in the fifteenth century. Just as Gutenberg’s printing press brought increased and independent access to knowledge and information 600 years ago, it seemed possible that the Google Library Project’s searchable database of the world’s books would allow access to our entire cultural heritage in digital format. It would be a new res publica litterarum for a new age of digital enlightenment.

My enthusiasm was dampened by the responses from literary colleagues to the Google initiative. Many regarded it as a ‘violation’ of their copyrights. The US Authors Guild was so incensed by Google’s actions that in 2005 it filed a class-action complaint against Google in the US District Court. The Association of American Publishers (AAP) followed with a suit filed on behalf of five of the world’s largest publishers: the McGraw-Hill Companies, Pearson Education, the Penguin Group (USA), Simon & Schuster and John Wiley & Sons. Invoking the provisions of US copyright law, both organisations alleged that Google’s agreement with public libraries to create digital archives of the out-of-print, public-domain and copyright works in library collections, without the permission of the many thousands, perhaps millions, of individual rightsholders, was a massive copyright infringement. The Authors Guild complaint stated that Google intended to ‘derive revenue from this program by attracting more viewers and advertisers to its site’. The AAP was more colourful. It said that Google was ‘seeking to make millions of dollars by freeloading on the talent and property of authors and publishers.

So what is the real issue behind the passionate objections of authors, here and in the United States, to a well-resourced digital corporation undertaking the digitisation of the world’s books? Is it that they really object to Google, who have paid millions of dollars to digitise the works, deriving income from the project?