Disability Group Comes To Google Book Search’s Defense

Google Book Search has not always had the largest of cheering sections; between authors wanting more money and watchdog organizations calling it a monopoly, the program’s encountered a lot of challenges. But an important organization stood up for Google Book Search earlier this week.

Ryan Singel reports, "The American Association of People with Disabilities told federal court judge Denny Chin that ‘vast numbers of books will be opened up for many people for the first time ever,’ citing the fact that Google Book Search will digitize books into formats that can be used by specialized readers."

Also, "The non-profit group asked the court to approve the controversial copyright settlement that Google struck in 2007 to settle a class action lawsuit filed by authors and publishers."

And since the American Association of People with Disabilities describes itself as America’s largest cross-disability membership organization, its recommendation may carry a significant amount of weight.

A ruling on the issue is supposed to come on October 7th. It should be interesting to see if Google Book Search can find any more supporters (and get them in front of Judge Chin) in the meantime.