Google

Google wants the Authors Guild to drop their bookscanning lawsuit against them. Yesterday, the company told U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin in Manhattan that the guild cannot represent “the owners of book’s copyrights.”

Bloomberg has the story: “Google said in court papers that because the guild doesn’t claim to own the copyrights at issue, it can’t sue on behalf of authors. Google’s lawyer also said today that the company’s scanning project has been an ‘economic benefit’ to many authors.”

The Author’s Guild, who has filed a class action lawsuit against Google seeking statutory damages on behalf of the authors who wrote the millions of books scanned into Google’s digital library, stands by their suit. Bloomberg has more: “‘It would be a terrible burden on the court if each individual author was forced to litigate,’ Joanne Zack, a lawyer for the Authors Guild, told the judge. ‘A class action is superior.’”

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Google has released a new business eBook called Mobile Playbook: The Busy Executive’s Guide to Winning with Mobile.

AppNewser has more: “The book is a business person’s guide to connecting with consumers using mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. The book explores the issue of how mobile changes a company’s value proposition and looks at everything from digital destinations to marketing.”

Here is more from the book: “Our goal is to help companies at all levels of mobile sophistication and experience to adopt the concrete mobile strategies that can help you win – and we don’t just mean, win in mobile. This space isn’t a sandbox anymore; the mobile revolution is sailing ahead at full steam, and your customers are on board.”

Checkout the website version of the Playbook here and download the free eBook here.

Google will discontinue its reseller program that allows independent bookstores to sell eBooks through Google’s platform. Starting on January 31, 2013, Google Play will be the only way to purchase eBooks through Google.

Google explained in a post: “With the launch of Google eBooks in 2010, we introduced a multi-faceted approach to selling ebooks: online, on devices, through affiliates and through resellers. One part of that effort — the reseller program — has not gained the traction that we hoped it would, so we have made the difficult decision to discontinue it by the end of January next year.”

ABA president Oren J. Teicher conveyed the news in an email to members today. We’ve reprinted the email below–the ABA has also created a FAQ for booksellers looking for more information.

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Google unveiled Project Glass yesterday, an experimental project building a pair of glasses that work like a computer screen.

The video embedded above illustrates the science fiction premise behind the glasses–as a young man navigates New York City, he uses a pair of futuristic computer glasses to send emails, check Google Maps and navigate the Strand Bookstore in New York City.

What do you think? This GalleyCat editor spends way, way too much time in front of a computer screen, so the idea of wearing a computer all day sounds awful. Author Sean Ferrell was blunt in a funny essay: “I hate Project Glass.” Poet Craig Teicher wrote a poem about these strange Google glasses.

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If you are writing for younger audiences or simply trying to make the Internet make more sense for a young person in your house, Google has a feature that will let you set the specific reading level on search results.

eBookNewser has more: “For instance, a middle school science teacher looking up earthquakes might want different search results than a geologist that wants up-to-date research on a subject.”

To search Google by reading level, Google has published the following steps:

1. Click More search tools on the left side of the search results page.
2. Click Reading level. You’ll now see results annotated with reading levels as well as a percentage breakdown of results by reading level.
3. To filter your results by a specific reading level, select your desired level (Basic, Intermediate, orAdvanced).
4. At any time, you can click the X in the right corner of the blue bar beneath the search box to go back to seeing all results.

Google has combined its eBook, music, movies and apps stores into a single digital location called Google Play.

eBookNewser has more about the shift. For the next few days, Google is offering 25-cent “Play of the Day” deals on digital content–including a 25-cent eBook edition of Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.

The new storefront also includes new eBook features: “Sharing the books you love with family and friends is just a click away. With Google Play you can easily post your favorite reads to your circles on Google+, via email, or text message, right from the pages of your book, without skipping a beat.”

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Google has created a Google Doodle in honor of beloved author Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday.

The image embedded above features several of Dickens’ most iconic characters, including Ebeneezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol and Pip from Great Expectations. When users click on the image at the Google homepage, they are taken to a page with Google Books listings for Dickens’ works including A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist and David Copperfield.

Here’s more about the birthday from The Washington Post: “Prince Charles [is] expected to visit London’s Dickens Museum. Actors who reportedly are scheduled to give readings Tuesday in Britain include Ralph Fiennes (who will play Abel Magwitch in the upcoming film of Dickens’s Great Expectations), Gillian Anderson (TV’s Great Expectations) and Sheila Hancock (Bleak House), as well as Simon Callow (Christmas Carol: The Movie) performing in Dickens’s birthplace of Portsmouth, Hampshire.”

Are you worried that digital books will ruin your favorite independent bookstore? This GalleyCat editor will join the #FollowReader Twitter chat at 4 pm today to discuss how you can support your local bookstore this year.

You can fill up your new tablet or mobile device with eBooks from indie bookshops with a few simple tools. Below, we’ve collected steps on how to buy eBooks from an indie bookstore.

1. Check the massive list of Independent Bookstores Selling Google eBooks. Find the store you want to support. Follow the store link to shop for eBooks.

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With hopes for a Google Books settlement dashed, the Authors Guild has filed for class certification in the Google Books litigation, claiming that authors are “passive victims of Google’s digitization campaign.”

If certified, the class action lawsuit will seek statutory damages on behalf of the authors who wrote the millions of books scanned into Google’s digital library. According to Publishers Weekly, Google’s lawyers need to respond to the filing in January.

Here’s more from the Authors Guild’s filing (PDF): “Google’s stated goal has been to copy all of the world’s printed offline books, and Google has acted to accomplish that goal by copying all types of printed offline materials, including books, journals, and dissertations, without authorization from the copyirght owners. Google has copied all types of books, whether in-copyright or out-of-copyright, fiction or non-fiction. Copyirght owners are merely the passive victims of Google’s digitization campaign. Google’s unilateral actions constitute copyright infringement, entitling Google’s victims to statutory damages … as well as declaratory and injunctive relief.”

To celebrate the 176 birthday of Mark Twain, Google released a Google Doodle depicting a scene from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (embedded above).

The picture shows a a team of kids tricked into whitewashing a fence in the classic novel. Follow this link if you want to download a free copy of the novel.

Here’s more from eBookNewser: “Twain was born during the visit of Halley’s Comet, and he died shortly after the next visit 74 years later. He had many jobs during those years, including reporter, author, gold miner, lecturer, and malcontent.”