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According to a daily newsletter from Publishers Weekly (but not published on its site), Rowman & Littlefield
Publishing Group (RLPG) has pulled out of Google Print in protest of Google’s Google Print For Libraries
copyright policy. This is a new wrinkle that should
be clarified: RLPG is withdrawing from Google Print For Publishers, over the Google Print For Libraries policy. RLPG
reportedly wants nothing to do with Google, has asked for previously made scans to be destroyed, and has requested that
previously contributed books be returned. The company president calls the copyright policy of the Libraries program a
“flagrant violation” of copyright law.
Here’s some back story as presented by PW: “Lyons said he was spurred to action over the problems one of RLPG’s
authors, Jack Neusner, was having in opting out of Google Library. ‘They’re making him jump through hoops’ to prove
that he has the rights to the books that Neusner doesn’t want to be scanned, Lyons said. Neusner is the editor of some
900 books and does not want his works to be part of Google Library unless he is paid a fee. Lyons said that as Google
gobbles up content he is coming to believe that “Google’s objective is to make publishers peripheral to the publishing
process.”
This is the wake of a lawsuit launched by the
Authors Guild. More to come, no doubt.
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