Google is inviting UK and US publishers to sign up for a forthcoming e-book store on its website.
Google Inc. plans to let people buy online versions of books, but only make them available for reading through a browser. The company wants to partner with publishers in the United States and United Kingdom to sell online access to their books, the company said on its Web site.
The new service, which would be available through Google Book Search, would make books available only after a person signs in to his personal account. People would not be able to store a copy of the book in their computer or copy pages.
The service presents users with fragments from the books and in some cases links to online retailers. It does not yet provide direct access to the works.
Google Book Search helps users who find and preview a book to buy it through online retailers or local bookstores. The e-book store will let them pay for immediate access to the book right from their browser, said Google on a webpage where it invites publishers to sign up for the service.
The service would allow publishers to set the prices for their books and make them available through a reader’s Web browser. "It is a way for publishers to experiment with a new method of earning money from their books in addition to those that already exist," the company said.
Google is offering the new sales option to publishers who are members of the Google Books Partner Program.
The Mountain View, Calif., company currently offers snippets of copyrighted works in search results, along with links to bookstores and online retailers where they can be purchased. Google, however, does provide online access to library books and documents in the public domain.
The plan is similar to a service launched by rival Amazon.com late last year. The retailer said it would give customers the option of buying online access to any page or section of a book, as well as the entire book. In addition, Amazon.com said it would give customers buying a physical book the option of also having that book available online for reading. The program is called Amazon Upgrade.
In a related programme, Google Print is scanning books from many of the world’s libraries. The books contain copyrighted material as well as public domain work for which copyrights have expired.
Google has had a rocky relationship with book publishers and authors. The Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild sued Google last year, seeking to block the company’s plans to scan copyrighted works without permission and derail its push to make many of the world’s great books searchable online.
Under the library project, Google plans to digitize books from the collections of Stanford University, Harvard University, the University of Michigan, Oxford University and the New York Public Library. The latter two are making available only books in the public domain.
Legal experts characterized that dispute as a new front in the battle over digital duplication of media including music, movies and books.
Nevertheless, the plaintiffs argue that Google needs to have permission to copy protected works. Both cases are pending.
Currently, Google users can view parts of books or entire books if the copyright has expired or a publisher has given permission to do so.
Several other parties, meanwhile, have launched competing projects. Amazon launched Amazon Pages last November, offering digital copies of individual pages, chapters or entire works.
Microsoft joined the Open Content Alliance in October which seeks to scan public domain books. Yahoo and HP Labs are among the organization’s founding members.
The new service would be open to publishers in the United States and United Kingdom who participate in Google’s Partner Program and can prove they have the rights to sell online access to their books, Google said.