San Fransisco, Nov 30: Yahoo!, owner of the
second- most used internet search engine, is resisting efforts
by Google inc. to obtain documents for a legal battle with the
publishing industry over book scanning.
Google's Subpoena seeks too much confidential information
that is irrelevant to its defence of a project to make library
books available on the web, said Yahoo's associate general
counsel.
''We don't want to be dragged into this lawsuit,'' Davis
said in an interview. ''This is Google's fight with the
publishers back in New York, and it's not our fight.''
Publishers and authors have sued Google, claiming the
company doesn't have the right to copy books from libraries
without permission. Mountain view, California-based Google,
the largest search engine, says it complies with copyright law
by only showing ''snippets'' of protected works to the public.
Yahoo also objected to the subpoena on the grounds that
the Sunnyvale, California-based company doesn't have a
comparable program to scan library books. Yahoo is backing an
organization called the open content alliance that is seeking
permission from copyright holders before scanning their
material.
Yahoo informed Google of its objection to the Subpoena on
November 21, said a Yahoo spokeswoman.
Bureau Report
First Published: Thursday, November 30, 2006, 00:00