Wolfden

Statistics, scan quality, metadata, truncated public domain, copyright and everything you always wanted to know about Google Books, but were afraid to ask. This is my complete output from autumn Santiago de la Mora’s (Google Books project CEO for EMEA) visit in Prague. Enjoy it!

How many sources do GBS have today, and what percentage of them are real full books, what percentage are magazines and how many are only fragments?

Santiago: Users can search the full text of over 10 million books. Over 1.5 million public domain books are available for users to read and download for free. Over 1.8 million in-copyright partner books are previewable by users Every month, users preview over 80% of partner books and 35% of public domain books. Books in the Google Books index represent over 100 language and over 50% of the books in our index are not in English. Google Books is available to users in 124 countries, across 42 languages.

Over 30,000 publishers have joined the Partner Program, including nearly every major US publisher (including McGraw Hill, Random House, Hyperion, HarperCollins, and Penguin). We have partners contributing books from over 100 countries. We’re currently partnered with over 40 libraries around the world, including 8 outside the US.

Partners are: Bavarian State University, Columbia University, Committee on Institutional Cooperation, Cornell Library, Harvard University, Ghent University Library, Indiana University, Keio University Library, Lyon Municipial Library, Michigan State Library, the National Library of Catalonia, the New York Public Library, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Oxford University, Pennsylvania State Library, Princeton Library, Purdue University, Stanford University, University of California, University of Chicago, University Complutense of Madrid, University of Illinois, University of Iowa, University Library of Lausanne, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Texas at Austin, University of Virginia, University of Wisconsin – Madison.

We have more than 9k publishers in Europe, more than 600k books in the Partner Program and books from more than 80 countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Google is scanning full books with copyright protection, enabling search on them, but showing only parts of them, how exactly does this work? It is legal? How exactly does the technical process of adding new books look like?

Santiago: Google Book Search is split into two distinct parts: the Partner Programme and the Library Project.

1. Partner Programme
Partners (typically publishers) give us their books to digitise and put online. Users are then shown a strictly limited number of book pages that are relevant to their search. This is enough to give them a rough idea of what the book is about. If it’s of interest, the user can then click through to the publisher’s website, or an online retailer, and buy it. Google scans these books for free and it does not charge when users buy books. In addition, when ads are chosen
to run below books, more than half of the revenue generated is given to the book publisher.

2. Library Project
Libraries like those at the universities of Oxford and Michigan, and the Library of Barcelona, provide us with their books to digitise so publications that were previously only accessible to people in the building can be found by anyone with an Internet connection. If a library book is in the public domain (out of copyright) it is shown in its entirety. If it is in copyright then users just see basic background (such as the book’s title and the author’s name), at most two or three snippets from the book and information about which library it is in, or where it can be bought. If publishers or authors don’t want to have their books digitised they just have to say so and we exclude them.

There must be some key for choosing new books and magazines on GBS, how are the sources chosen?

Santiago: We partnered with over 30000 publishers worldwide. They can sign up and provide any number of titles they choose.
Libraries offer extremely large collections that we want to make searchable to people all over the world. We work with our partners to focus on areas of their collections that are unique or special to them. Google makes an effort to avoid scanning the same version of a book twice. However, if we determine that two books that have been scanned are of the same manifestation/edition of a work, then we make an effort to combine the two scans into a single entity within our index.

What advice do you have for the publishers and content producers, who complain about GBS “stealing” the content?

Santiago: Book Search clearly benefits Google because the more information that is digitised and online the more relevant our search results become and the more people will use our services. But we believe that Book Search is also good news for anyone who writes, publishes, sells or reads books:

• it is good news for authors because it makes it easier for more people
to discover their work;

• it is good news for publishers because they can more easily reach a wider audience;

• it is good news for booksellers because readers are directed to the bookshops where they can buy books; and

• it is good news for people who read books because they can search through every book in our index and more easily find where to buy them, or which library to borrow them from.

Santiago: Google has tens of thousands of partners who have chosen to promote their books on our Partner Programme. Even the biggest bookshops don’t have room to stock more than a few thousand books. But digitisation makes it possible for people to find out about most books and where to buy them. This is a historic opportunity for authors to reach a wider audience.

Our Partner Programme is good news for backlist titles, too. Only a fraction of the books that are published today are printed in editions of more than a couple of thousand copies. Digitisation means that these titles are just one search away from being found and then bought – all at no extra cost to the publisher or author.

What is the main asset of the Google Books Settlement for Google? Is there some real asset for the authors (not Authors Guild only)?

Santiago: This agreement enables us to do more than we could have done alone or through a court ruling. Google was founded on the principle of making information more accessible to more people. With this agreement, we have made a huge step in this effort. We have reached a groundbreaking agreement with authors and publishers that opens access to millions of books in the U.S.; provides important benefits to libraries, academics and researchers; and creates a new marketplace for authors and publishers to sell their works. While this agreement only concerns books scanned in the U.S., Google is committed to working with rightsholders, governments, and relevant institutions to bring the same opportunities to users, authors, and publishers in other countries.

How exactly works Book Rights Registry program, is it global program or for Americans authors only?

Santiago: The agreement requires that a newly created independent, not-for-profit Book Rights Registry will be established for the purposes of locating rightsholders globally, collecting and maintaining accurate rightsholder information, providing a way for rightsholders to request inclusion in or exclusion from the project, distributing payments earned from online access provided by Google, and representing rightsholders’ interests in connection with similar programs that may be established by other providers. The Books Rights Registry will be managed by a board of directors consisting of an equal number of author representatives and publisher representatives.

Do you assume something like Google Books Settlement in the European Union?

Santiago: Our goal is to make all products and services global. More than 50% of Google’s traffic comes from international countries. However, because this agreement is the result of a U.S. lawsuit, it only affects Book Search users in the U.S.

What about Google’s own e-shop with digital books?

Santiago: We’re a search engine, and our goal is to link users to content, and in the case of Google Books to content from books. We’ve consistently maintained that we’re committed to helping our partners find more ways to make their books accessible and available for purchase. In the coming months, we hope to give publisher partners an additional way to sell their books by allowing users to purchase access to Partner Program books online. We want to build and support a digital book ecosystem to allow our partner publishers to make their books available for purchase from any web-enabled device–whether it’s a PC, a smartphone, a netbook, or a dedicated reading device.

What could (should) the future of online book selling look like? What about the traditional model of book distribution?

Santiago: We see electronic books as complementary to the print book. We also welcome other digitization initiatives. We believe in openness and are working on several initiatives to share our public domain books (e.g. partnerships with Sony e Reader, Barnes and Nobel, Coolerbooks.com, OnDemandBooks, and also Epub files downloads).

Do you agree with the opinion, that in the digital age the author rights are less valuable then in the past?

Santiago: We don’t at all. We believe that the digital age is good news for authors because it makes it easier for more people to discover their work.

What do you think about the accusation that Google Book search generates large profit at the expense of publishing market by placing advertising on its site without sharing the revenue with content makers?

Santiago: That’s inaccurate. The Publisher Partner Program is a free online marketing platform for publishers. We have over 30000 publishers signed up around the world, including over 9000 in Europe. We run ads on pages from Publisher partner books on Google Books, and the bulk of the revenue goes to the publisher. For books from the Library project (in either full view or snippet view) we don’t run ads.

When and how are you planning to extend the advertising to other language mutations?

Santiago: We run ads on pages from Publisher partner books on Google Books globally, and the bulk of the revenue goes to the publisher.

In which countries do you expect to encounter biggest problems (legal)?

Santiago: We can’t speak for others, whether it’s rightsholders or regulators. We believe Google Books is fully legal, and we’re happy to address any concerns users or rightsholders may have.

What could the future of online libraries look like?

Santiago: We see electronic books as complementary to the print book. We’re already working with a number of online books retailers to drive traffic to their sites from books.google.com, and also to share our public domain content with them. We believe in openness and are working on several initiatives to share our public domain books (e.g. partnerships with Sony e Reader, Barnes and Nobels, Coolerbooks.com, OnDemandBooks, and also Epub files download).

Do you agree with the opinion that Google Books is forcing its rules without warning those whom the changes could affect first?

Santiago: This is not the first time these questions have come up. The movie moguls initially sued VCR manufacturers as copyright violators – taking their case to America’s Supreme Court. They lost. The VCR – and its high tech offspring, the DVD – became the most profitable distribution channels in moviemaking history. We take the view – backed up by international copyright law – that no copyright is violated with Google Books.

Are you planning integration of other such services in GBS?

Santiago: We have nothing to announce at this stage, but are happy to keep you informed as soon as we have some announcements.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 02:26 AM and is filed under Mediální svět. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.