Microsoft joins the book search bandwagon

by admin October 26, 2005 at 4:53 am

And gets some digitising buddies…

In the wake of lawsuits filed against Google, Microsoft said on Tuesday that it would join a competing and less controversial library book digitisation project sponsored by Internet Archive and Yahoo!.

Danielle Tiedt, general manager of search content acquisition at MSN, said: “Given the copyright issues going on right now, it’s a dicey time.”

Google faces two lawsuits alleging it is violating copyright law by scanning and digitising all or parts of the collections at the libraries at universities such as Harvard, Michigan, Oxford and Stanford plus The New York Public Library. Last month, the Authors Guild filed suit against the search giant, and last week, the Association of American Publishers also sued.

Although Google says it will offer only a few sentences from books that are copyright-protected, unless the copyright holder gives permission to show more, the lawsuits allege that making copies by scanning the entire works violates the copyright law.

Full story: silicon.com