Google Book-Scanning Pact to Give Libraries Input on Price
SAN FRANCISCO — In a move that could blunt some of the criticism of Google for its settlement of a lawsuit over its book-scanning project, the company signed an agreement with the University of Michigan that would give some libraries …
Context & Ripple Effects
The University of Michigan pact lands amid a quiet revolt by Google's own library partners. In 2007, libraries declined deals to place their books on the open web, and in November 2008 Harvard walked out of the scanning program entirely over its disagreement with the settlement terms — leaving Michigan's continued participation notable on its own.
The agreement is a concession aimed at that unease: by giving libraries input on pricing inside the book settlement, Google answers the sharpest complaint from its academic partners without renegotiating the deal itself, and it hands the settlement's defenders an answer to critics who framed the project as a unilateral commercial grab — the same fear early commentary told readers not to have back in 2005.
First-order effects
- Michigan gains a formal voice in how prices are set under the settlement, and Google gets a marquee partner publicly attached to the deal at the moment its library coalition is fraying.
Second-order effects
- Other partner libraries facing the same pricing concerns now have a template to demand — putting Harvard-style defectors and holdouts in a position to negotiate rather than simply withdraw.
Third-order effects
- If pricing input becomes standard across partner libraries, mass digitization settlements shift from company-controlled catalogs toward jointly governed digital collections, with universities holding standing leverage over access terms.
The trend: Mass digitization deals are moving from unilateral corporate control toward negotiated governance, with partner institutions extracting concessions as the price of participation.