While the wait continues for a decision in the long-running Google Book Search (GBS) lawsuit and settlement proposal, a new study throws cold water on the idea that Google Book Search is bad for the publishing industry. The study suggests that Google's scanning and digital previews of books may be helping publishers sell more books. The study, published last month by Hannibal Travis, an Associate Law Professor at the Florida International University College of Law, examines the revenues and operating incomes of U.S. publishers that claim they will be most affected by the settlement and “finds no evidence of a negative impact upon them."
The study has found no support for an imminent monopoly by Google over books. Publishers of printed books continue to increase their sales and profits. Their rate of sales growth has increased since the scanning of books into GBS by Google. Book sales are growing faster than retail sales or the economy as a whole. These findings suggest that the benefits of digital libraries to American students and persons of limited disposable income, in terms of accessibility of information about and inside books, need not be sacrificed to save publishers from “Napsterization” and the loss of their customers. Moreover, the potential gains in economic efficiency, freedom of expression, and global democratization represented by digital libraries like GBS are more likely to outweigh any damage done by GBS to publishers.
Yet there are also many ways these studies underestimate the magnitude of the publishing industry`s hardship. Even assuming that digitization inherently is not bad for the industry, reliance on technology can cause several immediate and future complications. Though there are no immediate technical problems, forms of media and file types change frequently. One would be hard-pressed to find a way to play an 8-track cassette or Betamax videotape today, and likewise digitization software designed for earlier operating systems is often rendered inoperable in just a few years. Differences in display hardware will also contribute to altered perceptions of the reader. Digital copying also creates a host of legal implications under the U.S. Copyright Act.
As a result of such contradictory evidence, it is uncertain whether the publishing industry will suffer seriously as a result of mass digitization of books and, hence, whether the GBS should be supported or stemmed. There is only one area of agreement in this debate — that the existing research and studies are inadequate for measuring the impact of digitization on the publishing industry.