The Washington Times today has a piece by Congressmen Bob Barr, Republican, and Pat Schroeder, Democrat about the need to reign in Google’s Print initiative.
Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt has argued the “fair use” provision in copyright law allows Google to scan copyrighted books and put them on their Web site without seeking permission. He compares this to someone at home taping a television show and watching it later. Taped TV show are watched in millions of households every night and is quite legal; rebroadcasting that show to make a buck is not.
Meanwhile Google will gain a huge new revenue stream by selling ad space on library search results. Selling ads on its search engine is how Google makes 99 percent of its billions.
I have not come down on either side of this issue as I have not yet fully made up my mind. I think fair arguments have been made on both sides.
1) Snippets are fair use. News outlets do this all the time.
2) Nobody is allowed to profit solely for those snippets, which Google will do when it runs their ads beside Print search results.
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