Google Lets Publishers Use And Brand Its Book Search
from the much-easier-than-doing-it-yourself dept
We never could understand any reason, other than pride, that book publishers were building their own fragmented, expensive and limited online book scanning projects, when Google was out there willing to do it for free (and probably doing a better job of it at the same time). Now, it's becoming even less reasonable for book publishers to go through the process themselves, as Google is offering publishers the ability to create their own co-branded version that can be integrated into their own website, even allowing them to only show books from that particular publisher. Already, McGraw-Hill has signed up (though, as the article points out, McGraw-Hill is a part of the lawsuit against Google for their book scanning project at libraries -- with the difference between Google's Library book scanning project and its regular book scanning project being the key point of contention). Either way, it's good to see McGraw-Hill recognize that it's probably not worth the time, money or effort to reinvent the wheel here, when Google can do a much better job.
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wont that guarantee Google winning said law suit?
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Re:
Quoth TFA: with the difference between Google's Library book scanning project and its regular book scanning project being the key point of contention
That difference being whether or not there will be ad revenue. With the service offered to the publishers as a partnership, there will be contextual ads and the opportunity to share in that revenue stream. On the library side of the scanning house, where the publishers have not necessarily agreed to this, Google is citing a form of fair use (well, the libraries cite fair use)... but this starts getting into the murky gray corners, so there are no ads on the library side of things. This is for the same reason that there are no ads on Google News - appearing to profit from the works of others tends to make your case less favorable when people challenge your actions.
This, assuming that I understand the issue correctly.
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