The Battle for the Books: Inside Google’s Gambit to Create the World’s Largest Library A GigaOM ebook by Jeff John Roberts, staff writer, paidContent

The Battle for the Books - Summary

The Battle for the Books follows the development of the Google Books project and examines the struggles, innovations and legal hurdles involved in digitizing books. Author Jeff John Roberts gives the first detailed account of Google’s grand plan to build a modern day Library of Alexandria, its subsequent undoing, and how it changed the way knowledge is viewed in the digital era.

The Battle for the Books - Summary

Available for download for $2.99 on Amazon and iTunes, The Battle for the Books tells a technology story through interviews with the fascinating people involved and humanizes challenging concepts like: •  the intricacies of copyright, •  the role of publishers and authors, •  ownership of content, and •  the traditional role of librarians in society as well as their evolving

role in digital society.

The Battle for the Books - Excerpt

One crisp winter day in early 2010, the OJ Simpson of copyright trials was taking place in a federal courtroom 23 floors above lower Manhattan. The place was filled to capacity. More people sat in a nearby overflow room and yet more people stood gathered outside the doors, straining to hear the proceedings. The cause of the fuss was Google. On this day, everyone from Microsoft to folk singers to the government of Germany was clamoring to warn the court about Google’s scheme to create the world’s biggest library. One after another they told Judge Denny Chin of digital dystopias that would take place if Google controlled the world’s books. This was more than even Google had anticipated. What had once been a pet project of the company’s founders had metastasized into what one executive would later describe as “a Rorschach test” for people’s fears of the future. Those fears probe a time not long off when books are replaced by computer servers and companies could replace librarians as the prime the curators of our knowledge. Google did not start this upheaval but it will remain in the middle of it for a long time. Already, it has upended the publishing industry and bent the contours of copyright law. In doing so, Google also scanned everything from War and Peace to Watership Down, and built the world’s largest library.

The Battle for the Books - Praise

"Jeff Roberts has written a compelling, fast-paced and thoroughly absorbing account of the creation of the greatest - and controversial - accumulation of knowledge the world has ever known.” - James Stewart, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and columnist for The New York Times

"Excellent and beautifully written,” - Bruce Clark, correspondent and former editor, The Economist

The Battle for the Books - Author

Jeff John Roberts is a staff writer for paidContent, reporting on large media companies and legal issues affecting the development of online media. A lawyer and journalist, he has been covering copyright issues for the past 10 years, and has followed Google Books closely since 2009, including attending most of the court hearings in the copyright case.

Download The Battle for the Books here: pro.gigaom.com/books/the-battle-for-the-books/ Press contact: Allison Parker allison.parker@gigaom.com