LibreDigital, the company currently digitizing books and audiobooks published by HarperCollins, recently announced that it will offer its service to other book publishers as well. A division of Newstand Inc., based in Austin, Texas, LibreDigital creates digital formats of the New York Times, USA Today, and other newspapers and claims that its LibreDigital Warehouse program is the “first service that allows book publishers to digitally capture and deliver controlled book content online.”
The program gives publishers the ability to customize the digital content presented on their Web sites. By creating their own digital presence, publishers would be able to compete with recent efforts by the library division of Google Book Search, which is scanning millions of volumes with participating libraries. In 2005, the Author’s Guild and the Association of American Publishers filed separate lawsuits against Google over its plans to distribute copyrighted works without the permission of the copyright owners.
