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Google to put copyright laws to the test
"The card catalog in my experience is rather limited in terms of the amount it really describes," he said. Nonetheless, as e-media coordinator at Wisdom Publications, he believes each publisher should be able to decide whether to join, as his company has. Much of the objections appear to stem from fears of setting a precedent that could do future harm to publishing. "If Google is seen as being permitted to do this without any response, then probably others will do it," said Allan Adler, a vice president at the Association of American Publishers. "You would have a proliferation of databases of complete copies of these copyrighted works." Publishers won't rule out a lawsuit against Google. The technology juggernaut, whose name is synonymous with online search, isn't just shaking up book publishing. Google has a separate project to archive television programs but has so far received limited permissions. The company also faces lawsuits over facilitating access to news resources and porn images online. Jonathan Zittrain, an Internet legal scholar affiliated with Oxford and Harvard universities, says the book-scanning dispute comes down balancing commercial and social benefits. "From the point of view of the publishers, you can't blame them for playing their role, which is to maximize sales," he said. "But if fair use wasn't found, (Google) would never be able to do the mass importation of books required to make a database that is socially useful."
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