Google's Print project faces opposition from German author group

M2 Best Books, Oct 27, 2005

M2 BEST BOOKS-(C)2000-2005 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

The PEN Centre, the main association of authors in Germany, announced on Tuesday (25 October) that it is to join the protests against Google's Print project.

As part of the project, which involves five libraries, Google is digitalising books to make them searchable at http://print.google.com. Publishers and authors are, however, extremely critical of the idea due to copyright issues.

A three-month pause in the scanning of copyrighted books for the Google Print Library project was previously announced by Google in August this year.

Google is already facing lawsuits from publishers in the US who are opposed to the project. However, supporters of the project claim that the search engine is already helping book sales.

Wilfried F. Schoeller, general secretary of PEN Germany, has also criticised libraries in Germany for welcoming the project as a technological advance in finding books, reported Expatica.