Google's latest move in making classic out-of-copyright texts available for free online has sparked a war of words between Richard Charkin and The Times' business editor, James Harding.
The latest offerings from Google Book Search include a range of classic texts in full PDF format that have been made available as part of its digitization project with the likes of the New York Public Library, Stanford University and University of California libraries.
Texts range from Aesop's Fables and Hamlet to Dante's Inferno and Ferriar's The Bibliomania. A Google blog posting states: "Before the rise of the public library - a story chronicled in this 1897 edition of The Free Library – access to large collections of books was the privilege of a wealthy minority. Now, with the help of our wonderful library partners, we're able to offer you the ability to download and read PDF versions of out-of-copyright books from some of the world’s greatest collections."
The announcement prompted Times Business Editor, James Harding, to write an opinion piece supporting the search engine company: "Google may have just done for book-reading what e-mail has done for letter-writing," harding wrote, adding: "The service makes available to everyone the dusty pages of old tomes that once were reserved only for those with privileged access to the likes of the Bodleian library in Oxford and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts."
Harding's argument is that book publishers who oppose Google's efforts are being unnecessarily worried, as he feels they will adapt to the internet revolution in the same way that the music and film industries have evolved to turn the threat into an advantage. He writes: "Google’s service will be a boon to researchers and students. It will enable people to browse bits of books and, it must be hoped, cultivate more interest in reading. For the publishing industry, it will ultimately foster demand."
His views were not, however, shared by outspoken Macmillan ceo Richard Charkin, who launched into stirring personal invective against Harding on his blog, describing the piece as "garbage"
Charkin writes: "The industry has no quarrel at all with Google over the digitisation and searchability of out of copyright works. We quarrel with them over the use of the copyright material produced by authors whose copyright we are obliged to protect. They wish to usurp that copyright without prior permission. That is our argument and it is straightforward to understand."
<Ding> End of Round One. Watch this space.
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