A database of published books that have been scanned by Google and made available in Google search results or from the Google Book site. Introduced in 2004 as the Google Print Library Project, it started with Harvard University Library, New York Public Library and other prominent libraries. Many partnerships followed, and by the end of 2008, more than seven million books were online either entirely if in the public domain or as excerpts if copyrighted.
Highly Controversial
In 2005, Google was sued for copyright infringement by the Author's Guild and the Association of American Publishers, claiming the company had no right to publish excerpts of copyrighted material online because it was scanning the entire book in order to index it. Google claimed its service helped sell books, and after extensive negotiations agreed in 2008 to compensate copyright holders and continue publishing. In 2011, the settlement was rejected by the courts, and the appeals ruling sided with Google in 2015. In 2016, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal. See
Google and
Project Gutenberg.