Larry Lessig pointed to a "Google Group" that distributes statements from Google on the book project.
He cites one post from that group that repeats the common error of assuming that Google only displays a couple of lines. The last paragraph from that:
"Second, Google does not show more than two or three sentences without the author’s permission. And that’s not all. If a copyright holder chooses not to participate in Google Book Search, not a single word from the book will appear in any searches."
Here is a mirror of a comment I just entered to Lessig's post.
The error is of course on your and Google’s side.
Google is displaying all pages of all books to the totality of searchers. That they only display a couple of lines (much more meaningful than “sentences”, since sentences can be two words or two hundred words long) to individual searchers is irrelevant, since we are talking about Google’s use, not that of individual searchers.
While this error is not new, the last sentence is interesting. I thought that opting out meant that Google kept their fingers off the work completely. In contrast, this might be read that Google still includes works opted out in the database and in search results, but just displays no snippets for them. That would explain what happens when you search for “Supreme Court Sony”.
As I noted on my blog yesterday, one of the results on the first page (owned by Lexis) displays no pages and no snippets. I was somewhat puzzled by that, but this might be the logical explanation.
If this theory is correct, Google is reproducing content into their search database against the expressly declared will of publishers. That seems to be somewhat more serious than just violating copyright because it takes too much time to ask for permission.
Posted by Karl-Friedrich Lenz at February 10, 2006 02:58 PM