I’m finding this rather funny. Google is being sued by multiple groups over Google Print, Google’s plan to digitize paper books and make the content available online. Personally, I think it’s a great idea, as long as the information is freely available. I really don’t care if it is done by Google or some other company. That’s me, however the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers don’t like the plan… or at least they don’t like Google. Both organizations have filed a lawsuit against Google for copyright violations related to Google Print.

Now, while Google is in the courts there is a group of companies called the Open Content Alliance, which is comprised of the Smithsonian Institution, Hewlett-Packard, Yahoo, Microsoft’s MSN, Internet Archive, and others, which is wanting to do pretty much the exact same thing. You’ll be able to find the books scanned by the Microsoft-Yahoo-Internet Archive alliance at openlibrary.org.

Is this group looking for a lawsuit as well? With Google Print, you only get to view a snippet or a few pages at most; however what I saw at Open Library looks like you could sit at your computer and read through an entire book. How is Google violating copyright law if this other group isn’t? I just don’t understand.

Anyway, here is some more information on all of this:

• My Thoughts On Google Print
• Google Blog: Why we believe in Google Print
• Google Blog: The point of Google Print
• Google Blog: Buzz about Google Print and the lawsuit
• Google Blog: Google Print and the Authors Guild
• C|Net: An open-source rival to Google’s book project
• C|Net: Microsoft to offer book search
• BetaNews: MSN Joins Yahoo to Build Book Search
• Microsoft: MSN Search Announces MSN Book Search

Am I the only person that doesn’t understand the lawsuits?