Google, Fair Use, and Turnabout
Google and Microsoft are both involved in massive projects to digitize full libraries. Google, though, has been criticized for playing loose with the copyrights on some of those books. While both Google and Microsoft are digitizing public domain works, Microsoft claims to only be digitizing copyrighted works for which they have been given permission. Google, on the other hand is digitizing portions of copyrighted works without permission. They assert this is a fair use, because they are copying only small portions for indexing purposes.
I checked the Google search engine homepage, and found a copyright notice at the bottom of it – and the same copyright notice appeared at the bottom of the search pages I ran. Google’s search pages contain a list of sites, a portion of text from each site, the search box, and a few individual words used as links to other google pages, such as “search tips,” “language tools,” and “business solutions.” Not exactly the type of creative work envisioned by copyright law. So what is Google laying copyright claim to? I’m not sure. It’s ironic to me that they make a point to include a copyright notice on a webpage that does not appear to contain any material that would be subject to copyright (there are some trademarkable items on the page), while at the same time pushing “fair use” farther than some observers believe it should be pushed.
A court may yet determine that Google is within fair use standards, but it does make you wonder.
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