Amazon's Book Search Hits a Snag

The Importance of writes "Yesterday, Slashdot readers discussed Amazon's brand new, technically impressive and highly useful book search feature that lets users search the full text of over 120,000 books. Today, the Authors Guild is saying that the publishers don't have the right to let Amazon do this. Uh oh."

Comments

Re:misunderstanding

[Jonathan]

If you read the article, they bring up the examples of travel books or cookbooks. If I can just search to get info on a city I'm going to or a certain pie I want to bake, why buy the whole book?

Re:Ohhh what

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Not absurd at all. The AUTHOR still owns the work. Typically, the publishing contract will cover Book, and sometimes eBook form. Open, no compensation publishing on the web is not covered. The author is entitled to compensation, and the publisher isn't entitled to say "oh that's ok, go ahead" because the book does not belong to them.

Re:O'Reilly Safari?

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

O'Reilly owns those works, and can do what they like with them. Authors of O'Reilly books are either employees of O'Reilly, or contracted to write for them.

Authors who do not work for their publishers retain all ownership of their own works (unless they're foolish enough to sign them away, which most are'nt) Publishing a book in one form does not give you the right to distribute it in another form, without a seperate agreement with the owner of the work.

Re:Ohhh what

[sjvn]

> Open, no compensation publishing on the web is not covered.

All dear, someone who's never been in the business. Many, probably most, book contracts say that essentially all practical rights belong to them.

Frankly, one reason why I almost never write books and stick to magazines and newspapers is not only do they pay better, but at least in that side of the biz, you know up front that your rights are bought and sold.

Steven

Another example: Thinking in Java

[cyranoVR]

Or what about Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java? (Why didn't I mention it in my original post? ah well...) For those who don't know, this book is widely regarded as the best introduction to the java programming language. And Eckel offers the book as a complete, free download on his site. Why would he do this?

In fact, in his site FAQ, Eckel addresses this question: Why do you put your books on the Web? How can you make any money that way?

He writes: ...I was prepared to have low sales but the book brought people to my web site and to the CD Rom and seminars, so I felt it was worth the risk. Prentice Hall did a low first printing because they were worried about the online book cannibalizing sales. However, this book has done better than all the other books I've written -- for the first time I've gotten royalty checks that have made a difference.

Note that he mentions seminars - so this case represents an instance of an author that can have "concert tours" that make up for the lost revenue of a free online book.

Re:misunderstanding

[cpt kangarooski]

If it's a recipe from a cookbook it's not even copyrightable to begin with. So what's the big deal?

Re:Uh-oh for Amazon

[cpt kangarooski]

False. Fair use allows an individual to make one copy of part of a book or journal or magazine for their own "fair use". If an instructor wishes to distribute an entire chapter or article to the entire class, royalties are due to the author and/or publisher. Yeah, it seems like a loophole, but there's a difference between putting a book on reserve and allowing students to photocopy the relevant chapter and handing out 30 copies to an entire class.

False.

Fair use permits everything and nothing. That is, there are no absolutes as to what is and is not a fair use. Anything MIGHT be, or might not be. It _depends_. It depends on the specific facts of the fair use in question, as analyzed through the four-step test of 17 USC 107.

Under the right circumstances, it is totally okay to distribute an entire copy of a book. Under other circumstances it would not be okay to distribute evne a paragraph.

It always depends.

Re:Obvious exploit.

[Bronster]

So if I want to read an entire book for free via Amazon, all I have to do is make a script that automatically searches for a phrase extracted from the next page, wash, rinse, repeat?

First prize for forgetting/not reading that this is tied to your credit card, and that Spamazon (forgive maybe, forget no) limits you to a certain number of views total, and also a certain number _per_book_. Enough to stop you reading the whole thing (unless you're patient enough to do it over a whole year - but in that case, why not ask your local library for a copy repeatedly, and wait until they get it in).

Re:odd way to read

[cicho]

Amazon requires that you supply your CC number before you can search. (Probably happens automatically for those who already have an account.) Then there's a limit on the nuymber of pages per book they'll show you (up to 20%). So to get the whole book you'd have to have at least 5 separate accounts and 5 separate CC numbers. This Wired article has more.