Argument for Google's Position in Author's Guild Lawsuit Against Google - Report Example

Argument for Googles Position in Guild Lawsuit against Google Google is used the world over by millions of people on a daily basis. Its mission is to make available the world’s segregated information accessible to all and sundry. Google’s founders are Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The single most fascinating aspect of this search mechanism is that it produces results and that too quite accurate in literally a fraction of a second. With Google, come a number of different Google domains as these provide for a number of different languages in which information from the world over is available with a single click of the mouse. There are plenty of resources from where different stock quotes can be had, addresses can be found, phone numbers could be tracked, maps could be found out and news headlines can be checked upon. More than anything else, Google offers a Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) platform when the user is away from his computer and this links him easily with the Google services and different domains of which he is very fond of. The best thing about Google is that it is very easy to use and there are no manuals to understand what it is all about. Google’s utility has made it very common amongst teenagers, men and women. The best part about its expanding business is that word of mouth has played a huge role in its success and the advertising is literally negligible when word of mouth is compared with the same. This speaks of the affection and praise that the people, no matter how old they are or where they belong from, have for Google as a company. When it comes to Authors Guild, we find that their opinion is somewhat unsubstantiated and not backed up with the help of supporting facts and evidences. They have tried their hardest to keep Google away from the shores of book scanning and digitizing to millions of readers worldwide. What their point of view does is to present a gloomy picture of the thinking that the Authors Guild have and how they want to earn from each and every opportunity that comes their way. The basic objection to the digitizing and book scanning aspect is that Google makes use of these excerpts on its web pages which are filled with advertisements thus accounting to huge returns on the part of Google in the form of advertising revenues and marketing shares. There seems to be no other way than to adopt the advertising bandwagon since Google is a public domain in the present times more than anything else and any and everybody can copy, view and scan whatsoever he or she wants for their reading pleasure. The search engine does its best to make the texts, which can range from parodies to excerpts of the various books, presentable to all and sundry and it is only with the naivety attached with this thinking perspective of the Authors Guild that the project seems to hit the doldrums. The Authors Guild raises the point that Google is infringing the copyright laws whereby it has gone a step ahead of its competitors like Yahoo and the like and presented the books in a scanned mode. What the Authors Guild forgets is the fact that it is for the betterment of the readers themselves – for whom the books are written in the first place. If these readers would not view the excerpts of the books, how on earth would they even come to know what is there in those books? The answer to this whole question seems to be a difficult one to consume on the part of the Authors Guild and their lawsuit raises all the more basis for more and more apprehensions. The Authors Guild is basically opposed to the Google Print Library Project which has the basic functioning of scanning nearly all parts of a particular book which has been taken from the libraries of University of Michigan, Stanford University, Harvard University, Oxford University and the New York Public Library. These texts are easily searchable courtesy the Google search engine and thus the intended users (readers) can easily go through the contents of the books on view. The aspect of advertisements on these web pages where the texts are made available through the search corridor is something that raises quite a few eye brows on the part of the Authors Guild and thus they come up with the faintest of lawsuits which asks to prohibit the searchable capacity of these books through the help and facilitation of Google. The President of the Authors Guild, Nick Taylor suggests that this perspective alone presented by Google is a clear cut violation of the copyright laws and hence the searchable capacity made available on the part of Google should be taken away as far as Google is concerned. The Google authorities are rightfully pointing out the benefits that the general viewers (readers) of these books would indeed have and not only that but also the sale of these books would increase as a result, an aspect which could draw huge revenues for the authors who have penned down these books. Somehow or the other, they seem to forget this very vital aspect. As a business entity, Google extracts money and in more business like terms, the revenue from allocating space in the form of banners, buttons and hyperlinks to advertisers at rates which are not only cost effective but also aim at bulk deals. With this, Google gives them an opportunity to come back and invest more and more with the help of ads since they (advertisers) believe that they get the best possible mileage from Google and its different domains. Thus the company walks its talk when it says that the strides made in the business sector have been fruitful to say the least. Its high earnings and revenue shares suggest exactly the same. There are measurable and cost effective solutions for the advertisers who can get the best out of their products’ advertising courtesy Google. Google provides the single most definitive point when the talk goes out loud of online advertising and precisely Internet advertising. With the passage of time, Google has forthrightly continued to post company blogs on this subject and it has been vocal at suggesting that the company feels let down on the whole aspect since it wanted to help these authors and their eventual readers but whatever has happened is nothing short of an unfortunate event. Moreover, Google has been pretty straight at narrating what stands as a breach of the copyright laws and what does not. Thus there leaves a small amount of space for violations which could occur in the name of copyright laws and so on and so forth. The Authors Guild needs to understand where the infringement actually occurs rather than pointing fingers at the search engine which is recognized and acclaimed all over the globe. The Authors Guild lawsuit is not the first objection that has been raised against Google. In fact there have been a lot of hurdles in the way of Google to become the world’s most sought after search engine – a company which can boast of many firsts nonetheless. The Association of American University Presses has time and again criticized the working methodologies of Google which suggests that Google has done something for the betterment of its users (readers) worldwide which has sparked controversy. There was a temporary stoppage as far as the Google Print Publisher Program is concerned since it wanted to address the issues of the Authors Guild and other pressure groups which were bent upon destroying its very basis yet somehow or the other the renewal of the Google Print Publisher Program and it becoming the searchable engine for the excerpts of the books available at the top most universities is nothing short of success on its part. Now the books are being scanned at the request of the publisher which makes available the excerpts of the books under investigation. In the year 1998, there was a search for a buyer courtesy Google. After that they made sure that there are no beta search engines as far as Google is concerned which is considered quite a significant task, talking in the pure Internet language. There was built in innovation within Google in the year 2000 and in the year 2001, Google found that Usenet archives could just be the right thing to do the things in a Google manner. There was accessibility of all sorts of information without barriers in the same year at Google and after that Google Image Search and Google Catalog were introduced. Innovation continued and in the year 2002, advertising came in a rescue act for the company. Then there were the Google AdWords and Google AdSense and after that there was no looking back as far as Google is concerned. Google SMS came in the year 2004 and Google Groups and Google Print were also introduced the same year. Google Store, Google Video, Google Desktop, Google Maps Google Web Accelerator, Google Sitemaps and lastly Google Earth came in and took over the market. BIBLIOGRAPHY Mills, Elinor, Authors Guild sues Google over library project, URL: http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-5875384.html 20 September 2005 Author Unknown, Authors Guild Sues Google, Citing “Massive Copyright Infringement”, URL: http://www.authorsguild.org/news/sues_google_citing.htm 2005 Author Unknown, Copyright Lawsuit Targets Google, URL: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,68928,00.html 2005 Author Unknown, Google Sued by Authors Guild for Copyright Infringement in Scanning Books Online, The Internet Patrol, URL: http://www.theinternetpatrol.com/google-sued-by-authors-guild-for-copyright-infringement-in-scanning-books-online 2005 Kuchinskas, Susan, Authors Guild Gags on Google Library, URL: http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3550626 21 September 2005 Brumfield, Cynthia, Authors Group Files Copyright Suit Against Google, URL: http://www.ipdemocracy.com/archives/000484authors_group_files_copyright_suit_against_google.php 2005 Word Count: 1,528 Read More