More backlash for Google Print

Attacks on Google's Print for Libraries service keep on coming from the nonprofit publishing sector. Now the Association for Learned and Professional Society Publishers, which represents non-profit publishers such as university presses in more than 30 countries, is taking aim at the legality of Google's service. By publishing complete digital copies of various works without consulting with the publishers, Google is clearly violating copyright law, the ALPSP alleges in a July statement.

Google wasn't always in the wrong, the ALPSP notes. The two parties collaborated on "full-text indexing" of online publications in Google's Print for Publishers feature, and the ALPSP encouraged its publishers to participate in the venture. But Google had no right to digitize the publishers' content without their consent, the ALPSP statement says. It may still be possible to sort out a licensing agreement for digitizing its member publishers' works, the ALPSP says, but that means Google must stop copying and make a beeline for the negotiating table.