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March 12, 2007

Various industry analysts have urged authors and book publishers to get seriously involved in the debate on which Internet-based search model best serves their industry.

Both Google and Microsoft want to scan books and include the digitized equivalent on a Web site. However, Microsoft recently alleged that Google's methods infringe on the IP (intellectual property) rights of various authors and book publishers.

Carmi Levy, an analyst at Info-Tech Research Group says "the reality is that authors and book publishers need to work closely with search engines to remain relevant."

Meanwhile, an open source software advocate said Microsoft is trying to scare publishers away by adopting its own book search model. "Microsoft is being a FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) search engine," said Russell McOrmond, policy coordinator for the Canadian Association for Open Source (CLUE), in Ottawa, ON.

On March 7, Microsoft lawyer Thomas Rubin told members of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) that Google's Book Search abuses copyright protection while Microsoft's Live Search Books honours it. Rubin said Google has taken the position that it can scan, catalogue and display content published in book format under the fair use principles, unless the copyright holder tells them not to.

Google then profits from this material by running advertisements along with it. Rubin said Microsoft seeks copyright permission from authors and publishers of all copyrighted material before publishing it.

"The way I see it, Google has chosen the wrong path for the longer term, because it systematically violates and deprives various authors and book publishers of an important avenue for monetizing their works," said Rubin.

Rubin also accused Google of creating no content of its own, while "making money solely on the backs of other people's content and are raking in billions through advertising and IPOs". However, Carmi Levy said Microsoft's allegations against Google can be applied basically to the software giant itself.

"It is a constant battle to get the most votes from the publishers," said McOrmond, "and the protagonists are beginning to sound more like politicians on a campaign" he said. The analyst noted that Microsoft's platform is basically offering an opt-in model, under which the company will only scan books that authors and publishers have given them permission to include in its database.

On the other hand, Levy said Google's opt-out model would scan books in the public domain. Authors and book publishers who don't want their works in Google's Book Search must contact the company to have their property removed from the Web site.

McOrmond said the difference is essentially a non-issue, as both models can co-exist freely. "It's really up to authors and publishers to decide which search engine they will adopt and work with."

McOrmond likened the situation to the software market where buyers can chose between open source software and pay-per-copy packaged software. He said his concerns with Microsoft's Live Search Books is that the system will "leave out a large body of work."

He added "basically, they are saying that works of authors that they cannot locate do not exist and will not be digitized." According to McOrmond, digitizing books is one way of saving literature from destruction. He added "an opt-in model could mean only the more popular books, which only constitute a small percentage of the world's published material, will be saved."

McOrmond said the situation is akin to the film industry's dilemma where older celluloid movies are degenerating and not being saved in digital format, while lawyers continue to argue over copyright issues.

On the other hand, Levy noted that many authors and some book publishers have been relatively silent on the whole matter. "Ideally, they should get into the debate because this could mean their very livelihood could be compromized."

Levy said at the moment it would be very hard to judge which company is offering a better model "because they are both charting new territory." "For its part, Microsoft is trying hard to raise public awareness for its model because Google has a two-year lead in the search business."

But Levy said mud slinging can only end up hurting both parties concerned. "When two people start throwing dirty stuff at each other, they both get dirty."

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Source: IT World Canada