John Palfrey comments on the The American Association of University Press’ lawyer’s letter to Google complaining that Google’s scanning in of some major libraries violates copyright. John quotes from the letter, which was obtained by BusinessWeek:

“The common mission that unites all our members is to help the advancement of knowledge by making the results of scholarly research known through their publications, …”

“Google Print for Libraries has wonderful potential, but that potential can only be realized if the program itself respects the rights of copyright owners and the underlying purpose of copyright law. It cannot legitimately claim to advance the public interest by increasing access to published information if, in the process of doing so, it jeopardizes the just rewards of authors and the economic health of those nonprofit publishers, like the members of AAUP, who publish the most thoroughly vetted and highest quality information in the first place.”

John comments:

…A copyright law that results in such two statements in the same letter — and such pushback against a plainly important and good effort by means of a partnership between academic institutions and a corporation that is footing the bill for digitization — strikes me as, at best, an imperfect set of rules.

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