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Publishers Protest Google Library Project
gollum123 writes "A group of academic publishers is challenging Google Inc.'s plan to scan millions of library books into its Internet search engine index, highlighting fears that the ambitious project will violate copyrights and stifle future sales. In a letter scheduled to be delivered to Google Monday, the Association of American University Presses described the online search engine's library project as a troubling financial threat to its membership -- 125 nonprofit publishers of academic journals and scholarly books. The university presses depend on books sales and other licensing agreements for most of their revenue, making copyright protections essential to their survival."
Making the texts searchable - provided they only show a small snippet and a reference to the book for the rest - sounds EXACTLY like fair use to me.
Especially for academic papers, where being able to find the reference is critical to advancement of the field, and the citer would have to obtain and read more than the snippet anyhow.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Non-profit doesn't mean No-money-at-all. They still have to pay for the ink, paper, binding, (possibly)writers, rental space, light bulbs, heat... Or do you expect these people to donate money to something they're working on for free?
Also, very frequently, non-profit organizations pay their workers. Where do you think that money comes from?
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
The library: You are borrowing the book and must return it
If you really liked the work you had to buy your own version.
Digital Copy: You have a free digital copy. Now the only incentive into buying the work is so you have a physical book in your house - which, in and of itself is not enough reason for many people.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Totally. Not. The. Issue. If the works google is adding to the database are copyrighted, then they should only be reproduced by google under fair use terms. That means small snippets for search purposes (so if you find a reference in a book, you can make sure it is in the right context). Regardless of what the publisher's business model is, or what it should be, they own the copyrights and as such, largely get to dictate how the works are copied.
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Crudely Drawn Games
I think the goal was more along the lines of cultural enrichment, but perhaps that is an outdated idea.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
The point is moot. Google is only going to offer those works that are out of copyright (70 years after the death of the author I *think*) so no one should be making money off them in the first place.
There's a serious problem here in inviting publishers to submit their material. Publishers seem eager to submit their reprints -- for which they only have copyright over the book's design -- of public domain works. As a result, completely free works are listed in Google Print as "Copyrighted Material" -- in turn, allowing the publisher to misappropriate copyright w/in G. Print over written material they do not have copyright over.
See, for example, The Canterbury Tales in Google Print. This was written in the 1300s. I would very much like to see Penguin's proof of copyright over the works of Chaucer, who died in 1400.
Likewise, see Romeo and Juliet , written by Shakespeare, who died in 1616. Or The Legend of Sleepy Hollow , first published in 1819. Clearly no present-day entity has copyright over any of these works. Regardless, the publishers who have submitted their versions of them are able to enforce a 3-page-view limit on them without legal right to do so.
Google Print should be scrapped, and instead, the spotlight shined on Project Gutenberg.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Q: Who said that Google was giving away free copies of books?
A: Nobody!
I believe what they intend to do is:
Google isn't some magic fairy company that is above copyright law, and Google isn't dumb either. This is probably just another example of an idiot scared of a disruptive technology crying wolf. Google's new feature will probably just bolster book sales for these folks in the long run (and the short run too!).
About a month ago I was talking to my wife (a librarian) about the prospect of these books being available for electronic "readers". Basically a tablet you could download the books to and read. I thought it would be great if the display was good enough.
She looked at me like I was some kind of alien or something.
Apparently for some people, the tactile (feel of the paper & book), auditory (sound of the pages turning) and olfactory (smell of the book) senses are all part of the "reading experience". And they take it serious!
I just had to ask her if she really preferred to spend her time with heavy, smelly things that mostly just sit around and take up space.
She just mentioned something about being married to me.
The original motivation for libraries was to keep books in them. The only copy. Since copying books was a long, expensive, and laborious process for all but the last 600 years of human history.
The modern purpose of libraries depends on who set up the library and why, but among the typical motivations are:
There's a theme here. The public library exists to provide access to knowledge and information. I've never heard it said that libraries exist as an extension of the publishing industry. In truth, something like a library is a bit misplaced in a capitalistic society, but we've determined that the benefits of its existance far outweigh the hassle it is to deal with in our economy.
The internet, however, has changed that formula. You are not permitted to check a book out from the library and make 1,000 copies of it. You are also not permitted to distribute digital copies of the contents.
Again, there is no fundamental difference between what the Internet has done to these issues and was possible before. The Internet and digitalization technologies have merely reduced to the energy barrier so far that near-perfect replicas of most media can be created with literally the push of a button, and distributed nearly as easily.
Unfortunately for the copyright owners, this seriously threatens a business model that has served them well for generations and they must find a way to protect their property. Unfortunately for us, the way most have chosen is suiting us into oblivion and trying to jam legislation through our government that is intended to deter criminal behavior but mostly just makes life inconvenient and annoying for the majority of us who are doing no wrong.
When the innocent masses must compromise their liberty at the whims of a few powerful individuals who are motivated by "stopping the bad guys," we've taken the first step onto a bad road.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
Plus they don't go obsolete.
They don't require special equipment or power sources to use.
One book is very cheap compared to a digital book reader.
Can be dropped, kicked, thrown, sat on, with no real damage.
Can be partially destroyed without total data loss.
Can even stand a fair amount of water damage, with proper care for recovery.
Books don't have all the advantages, but they sure do have some real big ones.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
That is because, usually, the author is selling his/her license to the publishers who provide the upfront money to produce the books/pay the author.
At least with peer-reviewed journals, that does not hold true. The author usually has to actually pay to have their submissions printed in such publications.
For textbooks, it depends. For few-author textbooks, the author makes a few bucks, so your argument holds. For the sort of textbooks with dozens of authors, in some cases the authors don't even know they have their name attached to the book, and those who do usually get "non-financial compensation" only, ie, no cash but they can list the book on their CV as a publication.
Don't mistake the world of academic publishing for the "real" world of publishing. Academics publish for fame, not fortune, and the leeches that do the physical printing get to rob both ends of the process (thus the massive interest in purely on-line peer-reviewed journals, with a massive backlash by traditional journal publishers such as Elsevier).