Google launched the scheme in December, as part of its effort to make off-line information searchable on-line.
The libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and the University of Oxford as well as The New York Public Library have signed up to the programme – an expansion of the Google Print project, which initially targeted publishers.
The idea is that users searching on-line will see links on their results pages when there are books relevant to their query. Clicking on a title will deliver a page from which users can either browse the full text of the work – if copyright has expired – or brief excerpts and/or bibliographic data where the work is still protected by copyright.
According to Google, the programme will increase the viability of in and out of print books and generate book sales via "Buy this Book" links and advertising. Users on the other hand, will be able to search across library collections, including out of print books and titles that weren't previously available anywhere but on a library shelf.
But publishers, who were initially excited by the Google Print project, and signed up eagerly to the Print for Publishers programme, are now expressing reservations.
In a letter sent to Google on Friday, Peter Givler, the executive director of the Association of American University Presses, which represents 125 publishers, set out these concerns in detail.
"The idea that once this giant digitisation has been completed anyone with a computer and internet access will be able to use Google to search the collections of these libraries – including the public domain material from the New York Public Library and the Bodleian Library at Oxford – is enormously seductive," he wrote.
"However, in our view it is built on a fundamental, broad-sweeping violation of the Copyright Act, and this large-scale infringement has the potential for serious financial damage to the members of the AAUP."
Givler wants answers to a number of questions on how the search giant proposes to protect the copyrights of authors and publishers.
To date, Google has relied on the doctrine of "fair use" to justify its right to scan the published works; but the AAUP queries whether the doctrine could possibly apply to a programme of this magnitude. It is completely unprecedented in scale and sweep, says the letter.
The AAUP wants a definition of "snippet", and queries whether the search engine will in fact allow publishers to opt out of the program, as it has promised. Two publishers have already requested that their copyrighted work not be included in the program, but Google has not yet complied, according to the letter.
The AAUP is also concerned about the "extremely permissive use of digitised materials" by the participating libraries, which will be given copies of the scanned works in return for granting access to their collections. It queries whether Google has imposed any restrictions on the use of these copies by the libraries.
"Google Print for Libraries has wonderful potential," concludes Givler, "but that potential can only be realised if the program itself respects the rights of copyright owners and the underlying purpose of copyright law".
