"Google respects copyright," declared Google's Susan Wojcicki (pictured), Vice President, Product Management, Tuesday as Google began its vigorous rebuttal of the Authors Guild lawsuit to try to stop Google Print. "The use we make of all the books we scan through the Library Project is fully consistent with both the fair use doctrine under U.S. copyright law," Wojcicki continued, "and the principles underlying copyright law itself, which allow everything from parodies to excerpts in book reviews."

To underline the Google position, Wojcicki showed in her Google blog what an in-copyright book scanned from a library looks like on Google Print.

"Let's be clear," she wrote, "Google doesn’t show even a single page to users who find copyrighted books through this program (unless the copyright holder gives us permission to show more). At most we show only a brief snippet of text where their search term appears, along with basic bibliographic information and several links to online booksellers and libraries."

"We regret that the Authors Guild chose to sue us over a program that will make millions of books more discoverable to the world," stated Wijcicki. "Especially since any copyright holder can exclude their books from the program. What’s more, many of Google Print’s chief beneficiaries will be authors whose backlist, out of print and lightly marketed new titles will be suggested to countless readers who wouldn’t have found them otherwise."

"Just as Google helps you find sites you might not have found any other way by indexing the full text of web pages," she concluded, "Google Print, like an electronic card catalog, indexes book content to help users find, and perhaps buy, books. This ability to introduce millions of users to millions of titles can only expand the market for authors’ books, which is precisely what copyright law is intended to foster."