Slashdot Mirror
Google Print Holds The Presses
brokenarmsgordon writes "Google Print, the project launched in December to digitize the entire collections of five major libraries, has been put on hold until November. Google will stop cataloging in-copyright books until November to give publishers time to decide if they would like to participate and to mark which books they want excluded from the index. "
It will be interesting to see which titles will be available through it once Google Print is ready for prime-time use.
my geeklog
check out their own blog
It's actually kinda funny..
That's right: Google won't even scan any book copyright holders ask them not to, even though doing so is perfectly legal. It's as if copyright holders got to dictate what books get placed in libraries. Their short-sighted selfishness will cost us all, depriving us of our heritage in our online Library of Alexandria.
Losers whine about their best, Winners go home to fuck the prom queen
Surely the onus is on Google here to NOT blatently copy in-copyright books? In should be up to the publishers to mark the books they want INCLUDED in the index.
understand the market value behind the decision.
But, I would love to see a network drive or
something similar hosted through google.
Or, upgrade google-maps and do a full GIS system.
---- Berlin Brown http://www.newspiritcompany.
This is old news; it was posted on the Google blog 2 days ago. I am surprised it has taken this long to reach /.
5
/. isn't accepting my password...)
The real question is whether someone has yet implemented a hack (as described in this K5 post http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/3/7/95844/5987
I am a student, and my reading list for next semester will cost me $1850 (Amazon prices). If anyone has any updates on the 'google print hack' I (and thousands of others like me) will be most appreciative!
(PS, sorry for posting as AC, but for some reason
Why, all of them of course..
I cant imagine them letting too many of their 'products' become free...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I thought you had to HAVE PERMISSION to copy copyrighted materials, not specifically FORBIDDEN to copy a specific book.
Which means that either Google doesn't have the right to scan the web or it does have the right to scan books. Either way, both websites and books are copyright by the same laws and google downloads full copies to its servers to make them searchable for its commercial gain.
Perhaps it is the tremendous usefulness of Google that has kept it from dying underneath an avalanche of lawsuits for its downloading of websites, but whatever the case Google is a company that uses other people's copyrighted material for commercial gain.
Is it fair use? It is to me, but I think downloading the entirety of a commercial work on an opt out basis is not fair use under the historical legal of fair use in the US.
It's the money, stupid.
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
I didn't want any more people reading through my diary.
Our precious, precious books, we aren't gonna let those evil copyright pirates just digitize them and advertise them for free to billions of people. No, we are not. We are rather going to spend many millions of dollars each year to advertise our books ourselves. Yeah, those superbowl ads for the latest critical edition of Hamlet or a historical analysis of Islam, those are gonna rake in the millions. Right.
fuckstick
Whatever, dude. The principle behind it is interesting (whether or not you personally believe in violating the copyright holders intelectual property rights -and don't get me started on that). Personally, I believe that if a lecturer is charging $90 for a book that he makes his students read, its fair enough to give him a *big* FUCK OFF and get it for free off the net.
Each to their own.
Publishers who refuse to participate should be punished. While I respect their right to protect their property I do not respect their lack of foresight nor do I appreciate the damage they do to the free exchange of ideas by artificially limiting access to these valuable resources. Take the time to write to your favorite publishers and let them know that you support the Google Print project and will vote with your dollars for those publishers who do. Here is contact information for three of my favorite publishers.
u s.jsp
Tor Books
E-mail: inquiries@tor.com
Fax: (212) 388-0191
Dead Tree:
Tor Books
175 Fifth Avenue
New York NY 10010.
Perseus Books Group
2300 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Phone: 800-371-1669
Fax: 800-453-2884
Email: perseus.orders@perseusbooks.com
http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/perseus/contact_
Random House
customerservice@randomhouse.com
Random House, Inc.
1745 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
Phone: (212) 782-9000
http://www.randomhouse.com/about/contact.html
It is funny how the rules for print on the web seem different than the rules for print on paper, even though there is no legal difference between them (IANAL). Hopefully, people will figure out these copyright issues and Google be able to finish doing what is good for consumers.
From your link: Google Weblog is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google, Inc.
Google's actual blog is http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
From there we have:
"So now, any and all copyright holders - both Google Print partners and non-partners - can tell us which books they'd prefer that we not scan if we find them in a library. To allow plenty of time to review these new options, we won't scan any in-copyright books from now until this November."
So unless told otherwise, Google will assume they have permission to scan copyright work.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
The ideal library, obviously, would be every book ever written neatly indexed and available on-line at Wiki-type sites or dedicated sites, searchable by Google. Knowledge should belong to humanity, it should be among the commons like clean air. Authors obviously tremble with fear of the idea of any and every book being available to anyone for free, for it could potentially cut the revenue they are currently earning on humanity's mass-murder of trees. This destruction must and should stop, moving literature on-line is only a natural step toward a sustain able development.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
what the hell happened to wikipedia?! Their stats don't look too hot from the past hour or so.
Good point. But sooner or later we're going to have to decide what is and isn't open to us all. So far no-one has come up with an idea that makes everyone happy.
Well, it seems as if there may need to be a separate copyright exemption for indexing rights! Of course, that might conflict with DMCA provisions that prevent circumventing copy protection.
Why not not give permission to let google scan their copyrighted works. Wait until they show up on google scholar, and THEN sue google. Ka Ching. Silly copyright holders.
They do have a right to scan books that they own, but they don't have a right to copy all of a libraries' book, nor do they have the right to distribute (AKA show to you) any pages from these books. Also it would be a likely copyright violation if they bought tons of books scanned them and the sold them.
Google caches copyrighted material: here
It is the full book "Harry Potter and the Halblood-Prince", conveniently converted to HTML and cached by your friendly Google-jerks.
Google Print will, by default, include excerpts from copyrighted works if they can get their hands on it.
It's kind of sad that you really have to be in tune with the electronic world to know that fairly soon your books are getting copy & pasted into a public company's database. Hopefully Google's actually attempting to get the word out about this service to as many publishers as possible. A web page, blog entries, slashdottings, even a press release aren't good enough for the partly unwired publishers.
As a user, I like the fact that as much text as possible is searchable sans the books whose publishisers opt-out. But if I were a publisher, I'd rather have the option to opt-in to this public company's service than to automatically have my written products copied into a database without my permission.
When did slashdot become "Warez for Nerds"?
Why don't they simply NOT publish books on google that are less than 10 or 15 years old? If it's over 10 years old, the book is free knowledge for all. In fact, why isn't it like this for ALL media/art.
I find it ridiculous that artists, musicians, writers, etc can earn a steady income off of something they accomplished 30 years ago.
Not only would this idea eventually create much much more content for everyone, but the creators would be forced to continue working in order to make money and live. And if they only get lucky with one book, song, picture, etc, well then I guess it's time for a 9-5 job like the rest of us!
Knowledge and Art should be as accessible to the entire world as Oxygen is.
...what horrible things can happen when information finds its way into a search engine. ;)
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
"They do have a right to scan books that they own, but they don't have a right to copy all of a libraries' book, nor do they have the right to distribute (AKA show to you) any pages from these books."
That is an interesting distinction, using the idea that you have a "fair use" right to change the format and/or copy a work you own for your own use, but it would leave open the possibility that it could scan a library's books on the library's behalf.
Next would come the question of if you can use copyrighted material for a commercial purpose, even if you don't show the text. You are allowed to use business techniques you read in a book, but in that case, teaching those techniques is the purpose of the book.
Charging people (or making them watch ads) for a search of copyrighted material you don't own copyright to is an interesting test of copyright. I hope Google succeeds, but I'm wary of Google's increasing control over how information is accessed. Also, I don't support the replacement of printed books with scans. Scans and OCR documents are a good supplement for the book, but a totally inadequate and volitle substitute.
In a library you have one purchased copy. You have one person checking it out at a time. Its truly 'borrowing'. You dont have concurrent 'non paying' users like is being proposed by google.
Not saying its a bad thing and i wish google the best. I just dont see it happening quite like they want, due to greed in corporate society today..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Support your local library then.
Hah. I'm not surprised. I never believed this would really happen.
Remember Al Gore talking about digitizing the Library of Congress so that a little girl in Carthage Tennessee would have access to books? That never happened either.
Al Gore talks big and the Library of Congress never delivers.
Google talks big and doesn't deliver.
And meanwhile, eccentric Michael Hart and his wild, impractical idealists digitize book after book after book.
About half the books on the Net, as indexed by the UPenn online books page were digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Hart drives all the eBook mavens crazy. He does everything wrong. He doesn't use Open EBook markup. He doesn't worry about conforming PG texts to authoritative academic editions. He doesn't posture.
All he does is get the job done.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Why not allow Google to scan book content, but embed advertising inside the scans. Sort of like product placement that movie companies use. Works for Google, could work for publishing houses?
I had figured "Don't be Evil" was tossed out when they began participating in censorship of their chinese users at the behest of the mass murders who run that country. I had hoped it was replaced with "Every once in a while, do something that is mostly good" but I guess even that was too much.
I don't mean to sound paranoid or to cry wolf, but the way Google is going really makes it seem scary how much info they control. Remember that "Googlezon" flash animation about the Google Corp. taking over the world? Google seems to be heading there... with all this info in their control, it seems like they have or will have a very firm control over what information people see. Look at the way they treated CNET; sure CNET maybe did do a little poor publishing, but they shouldn't be treated so immaturely: "We won't talk to CNET for a whole year." That's what children do! Now imagine when Google has control over all the world's information, and they are the *sole* backbone of the internet. Then they can *really* take over who and who doesn't get "access" to the info. And if they do so over petty whims such as a small news article, by golly its gonna be scary.
"I am a student, and my reading list for next semester will cost me $1850 (Amazon prices). If anyone has any updates on the 'google print hack' I (and thousands of others like me) will be most appreciative!"
Hi! I'm a drug addict, and my drugs will cost me $50,000 (street price). I think I'll just knock over some drug dealer and be sitting pretty tonight. Oh wait. Unlike the publishing industry, the dealers will kick my "living in momma's basement" ass all over the city. Darn! Don't you hate it when they fight back?
"The ideal [society], obviously, would be [everything I ever did free to everyone]. [My efforts] should belong to humanity, it should be among the commons like clean air. [Blue and White collar workers] obviously tremble with fear of the idea of [their efforts] being available to anyone for free, for it could potentially cut the revenue they are currently earning on humanity's mass-[consumption of their work and sweat]. This destruction must and should stop, [making everyone work for free] is only a natural step toward(s) [...] sustain(able) [slavery]."
Maybe in the near future we will see some sort of robots.txt page at the start of every book.
That would be a solution publishers could use.
"Our societies failure to value freely shared knowledge because it is structured, by law, in a way which puts profit over good is also irrelevant for my point:"
People have been desiring reward for their work long before you were born.
"Humanity does best better itself as a whole by freely sharing knowledge so as many as possible can access it and grow from it."
Well seeing as to how profit (reward for work) is low on your totem pole. You are working for free then?
Yes, AFAIK that is accurate: Google does have the right both to scan the web and to scan the books. Google is not suspending the scanning of copyrighted books because it's against the law; they appear to be doing so as a kind of "good faith" gesture towards publishers. It appears to be entirely legal for Google to scan copyrighted books on behalf of libraries that own the books (a lot of people seem to forget that bit!). It certainly doesn't seem that anyone is under any actual legal obligation to stop scanning.
At the same time, I guess Google doesn't want any legal hassles from publishers, no matter how illegitimate their lawsuits would be. It's not hard to see why they're doing this, though (a) it's disappointing that the publishers get their way many books are excluded from one of the greatest research tools ever imagined; and (b) it's good that Google has not admitted that what they are doing is in any way illegitimate.
people around here are quick to assume that the free reading of books is not just a privellage, but a RIGHT of everyone.
but publishing is still costly, unlike the music industry. printing books is still really expensive compared to pressing CDs etc, and I wonder how you'd feel if nobody bought your book you worked full time on for a year because they were able to just download it online.
yes, libraries do the same thing, but the fact that it's online makes it 100 times more convenient. music piracy wasn't a problem until napster came along, because analog recording or even burning copies of CDs from the library or from friends was less convienient than just going out and buying your own copy.
also this google service is different in that you can keep the book pretty much forever. the library makes it so that it's difficult to keep the book for an extended period of time.
i do think this google service would be great for important educational/research materials that should be shared freely but for novels, comics, and political satires that are purely written as entertainment to make money, this google service only seems to hurt authors and publishers, who are having a hard enough time already competing with cheapening technology while they are still printing expensive hardcover books.
They don't own my website either, but they have the right to copy it. Same deal as with the library.
Your fair-use rights to a work are no different when you check the book out of a library as when you buy it.. when it's in your posession, the same rules apply.
So who will be the first to figure out an easy way to recover whole books using enough google print keyword searches, thereby obtaining entire copies of books for free.
Vote for Pedro
- Oh wait, they did remove sources from Google News because newspapers complained....
- Oh wait, they did remove search results because of DMCA takedown notices....
On second thought, maybe it's not that shocking. Maybe that's why I predicted this in June and April....For me, the issue is that Google, a rich corporation, has talked some libraries into providing access to their collections, even though the library is not the rights holder for the copyrighted works they own. The library that is most eager to let Google scan everything is the University of Michigan, a public institution.
The contract with U.Michigan was confidential until they posted it in response to a request I filed under Michigan's freedom of information law. Google gets to scan everything, and U.Michigan gets a copy of the scanned files. However, U.Michigan is not able to do anything with their copies except to offer it on their own website, assuming that they take measures to prevent excessive downloading and automated crawling.
By way of contrast, Google gets to do anything it wants with its copies, forever, and that includes selling it to partners, or passing them along to any successor of Google. They will show ads for where to buy copies of out-of-print books. The entire book will be scanned, but only snippets will be shown surrounding the search term for books that are in copyright. With this latest announcement, they say that they will not show sponsored links unless the publisher agrees to join in the Google Print program.
Google considers anything published after 1922 to be copyrighted, except for government documents that had no copyright to begin with. Now they are inviting publishers to opt-in to their Print program, so that more than snippets can be displayed, and the publisher can get a cut of the sponsored links that are clicked on.
But you have to ask yourself, how many books that were published since 1922 are represented by current publishers who are aware of Google's plans and inclined to respond to Google's invitation to opt-in or opt-out? Consider that many publishers are no longer the rights holder once a book goes out of print, as contracts often stipulate that the copyright then reverts to the author. When Google talks about allowing publishers to opt-in to the Print program, or opt-out of the scanning, my guess is that we're talking about less than 20 percent of all copyrighted material that Google plans to grab.
The other 80 percent will be grabbed by Google without the "express consent" of the rights holder that is required by copyright law, usually with the rights holder not even being aware that an opt-out is available from Google. This is what Google has its eyes on, but it's not what they want you to think about when considering this issue. The used-book purchase links alone will be a cash cow for this 80 percent. Their statement that they will not show sponsored links on pages from copyrighted books that have not opted-in is not enforceable, given that they can chang their mind about that further down the road. It's just not fair to rights holders.
The proper procedure would be for Google to solicit permission for anything in copyright, and skip that book if there is no response. They should make an arrangement with some entity similar to the Copyright Clearance Center, and invite rights holders to submit permission forms for Google to scan their books. A license fee might be involved, so that these holders can get some compensation. The question of whether ads are allowed, or how much content can be displayed, could be negotiated as part of the license fee. Then if the library has the book, no one will complain when Google scans it. If it doesn't have the book, perhaps the rights holder can make a copy available if Google still wants it.
That's what Google should be doing, instead of ripping off every rights holder since 1922 by default. There is more on this issue at Google Watch.
....either that or a totally sad nerd. because that is exactly what i thought when i read that story. hehe
also - how did you break slashdot's code that forces domain display? is it just me and my browser?
One is a completely voluntary project, at print.google.com, where publishers send Google hardcopies or PDFs, and Google indexes them. I've participated in this project as a publisher. If you want to see an example of Google print, go to print.google.com and type in the search text "Even as great and skeptical a genius as Galileo" (with the quotes). It'll send you to one of my books, and supply you with a link to buy it. (Unlike most of the books in the progran, my books are also CC licensed, so you could actually download the PDF for free if you didn't want a nice bound copy.) The idea is that it's meant to help publishers boost sales: people search in Google, run across your book, and buy it. It's not meant to be a way to read an entire book --- they make it a hassle to do that.
The other project is completely seperate: to scan and index the contents of some libraries.
AFAIK, the name "Google Print" was only supposed to refer to the first (opt-in) project.
So far my experience is that Google Print is a complete bust. I sent them the printed books last year. They scanned them and OCRed them, and then said they'd go live Real Soon Now, which never happened. They sent me an apology note, along with cool little digital clock embedded in a blue doll that says Google on its chest. The apology note said it sould happen Real Soon Now, but that was some time ago. IIRC there was a period of several weeks where I could search in regular google, and and some of the results would be Google Print results from my books, but now they appear to have turned that off. (Try it with the quoted phrase I gave above, and it only gives links to my PDFs and mirrors on other sites, but nothing from Google Print.) Since people don't normally go to print.google.com to search, that means the program basically isn't doing anything right now.
Find free books.
You fail to see that the copyright periods keep getting lengthened over time, or ask why, or was why it was not made forever in the first place?
You failed to see whether copyright is necessary to protect the interests of writers, why increasingly unneccessary publishers are asking for more money for cheaper books made on shittier paper.
You failed to explain why we need basic calculus 17th edition when nothing a schoolboy needs to learn has changed in at least a century.
You fail to see that most writers, coders, musicicans, actors, etc. get very little because they aren't annointed as the "in flavor" by their corresponding distribution megalith. These distribution chains are far less necessary than ever before, yet they we have never seen such a rampage against fair use, privacy, individual rights as we see today. All driven by your favorite media special interest group.
you fail to explain why a writer or coder is somehow more deserving than a plumber who cannot write plumbing 1.0 and then sit on his fscking a$$ for the rest of his life. People sitting around doing nothing their whole lives are just as indicitave of "imperfections in the system" as the unemployed poor.
Try working for a living. Done writing a book or some code? Write some more! If your product is worth it, and you price your code correctly, you will make enough money to support you and your family in non-extravagant way - like the plumber. If your project requires more people, scale up accordingly, but stop looking to retire rich and live the rest of your life like f-ing bobby brown and that crack hoe whitney houston.
Musicians, Writers, Actors are all the same, they want to hit the f-ing jackpot while the rest of us work our lives to support them. Arguments of utility to society are bullshit. how did brad pitt make my life better than the guy who unplugs the sewer, or the laid off engineer who designed my 802.11 pcb?
WAAAY TOO MANY creative types worship this jackpot mentality, thinking only about the riches they will win if they join the system. but most who swing for the fences miss and get nothing. How is that different than playing lotto?
Copyrights, patents, IPOs, etc. are not for regular people, they are for publishers, producers, lawyers, Wall Street types, and other parasites who spend their time getting between you and your customer while you spend your time working. Why let them? Is it because your reach exceeds your grasp?
Stop fighting their battle against individual rights for them. Stop helping them to plant spy chips in your DVD player and computer, "to keep you honest".Stop letting them sell you perfectly good hardware with broken software that is used to pull you by the nose where they want you to go. Stop helping them lobby for media taxes and keeping you from looking at your movie on the OS you choose.
In short, just STFU you pompous a$$.
"due to greed in corporate society today..
I fail to see how copyright represents 'greed in corporate society today' anymore than it would have fifty years ago when the writers and publishers would have also objected to this kind of thing."
Just because the technology is 'cool' doesn't make it right.
And just because the law is 'behind' modern technology doesn't make the law wrong.
This law is there to protect people and allow them to make a living off of publishing written material.
This could potentially steal a lot of money from the copyright owners. If Google _asks_ for and gets permission from the copyright owner (not assumes it's OK unless told otherwise), then fine, scan the thing and put it online.
But until Google has the permission of the copyright owner, they need to stop doing this.
Perhaps it's already been decided in court, but I wonder what the legality of the Google cache is. Technically, Google is copying and storing copyrighted webpages I would think.
While Google is at it, why don't they 'scan in' copyrighted software, like Windows XP, Solaris, etc. and make them freely available.
Or, how about copyrighted DVDs, like the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc., etc.
They are potential copyright violations that the copyright owner's could sue over. That is why the Wayback Machine retroactively respects robots.txt. If they deal with it very quickly the copyright holder has no real reason to sue. Also Brewster (Founder of the Internet Archive) will pretty much take anything down that there is any question about. It helps that archive.org doesn't collect any ad revenue, or charge for the archive use.
That's precisely what Google is doing... Furthermore, it's consistent with what the Library of Congress (and, I presume, it's British equivalents) was intended for
As for Copyright infringement, it gets a bit more interesting. If Google manages to make it really difficult for anybody to bulk-grab entire books (or large proportions of them), and it turns out that being in the database increases sales of the associated books, then Google should have a pretty good shot at a 'fair use' defense precedent.
IANAL, but I can fool sherrif's deputies on a good day.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
This might be different with books, where the copyright owner's expectations are different.
Google needs permission from every publisher for each and every book they wish to publish through the web.
Just waiting N months for complaints doesn't grant G any rights, no matter how long N is.
is there a way to buy the books so you can download and print it yourself? I'm sure they can make a lot of profit when offering $1 per book print.
A future revenue stream for Google Inc. is to earn a commission on each e-book sold through their website.
They already have each book scanned (and by the looks of it pretty well formatted) so that turning them into any random e-book format will be a piece of cake.
They just need a deal, similar to Apple's deal with the music publishing companies. They will just send a cheque in the mail every month for the books sold out of a publishers catalogue.
And you know what? I would buy books that way. My Sony CLIE is falling to pieces, but its a dream to read books on in the train.
Amazon's e-book selection is the pitts, just business and some SF. And my personal favorite (http://www.baen.com/) desperately needs to upgrade its website. Book publishers need a big kick under their butts, fast.
> I think downloading the entirety of a commercial
> work on an opt out basis is not fair use under the > historical legal of fair use in the US.
Maybe, maybe not. Remember the world's bigger than the US, and different laws may apply in other countries.
http://milkshake.dexy.org
Well I'm not the AC in question but we all look alike anyway so.
"You failed to see whether copyright is necessary to protect the interests of writers, why increasingly unneccessary publishers are asking for more money for cheaper books made on shittier paper."
Two statements in one. Copyright is necessary for the same reason the GPL is necessary. Human nature. In an ideal world one would get a fair shake from their fellow man, but that's not reality.
As far as the "quality issue", in a market based economy it's the right of the purchasing public to vote with their dollars, and let the publishers know why they're not purchasing.
"You fail to see that most writers, coders, musicicans, actors, etc. get very little because they aren't annointed as the "in flavor" by their corresponding distribution megalith."
All the more reason to not take away what little they get.
"These distribution chains are far less necessary than ever before, yet they we have never seen such a rampage against fair use, privacy, individual rights as we see today. All driven by your favorite media special interest group."
Three statements in one. Starting with the first. The distribution means (moving physical goods) are quite necessary for reasons we've covered in the past, but here we go again. Physical paper still has advantages over reading a computer screen. From the readability factor, to the durability of the medium. Plus it's independence from a power cord. And last familiarity.
Attack against fair use? Now as one famous dead person pointed out. Freedom requires eternal vigilance. I'm hoping that everyone complaining about "loss of..." were eternally vigilent, and fought this loss from the beginning. Instead of being a "johnny come lately", and expecting someone else to do all the work they wouldn't.
And last, Slashdot weither you realize it or not is a "special interest group". Any organization were people of common interest come together to express their opinion is a "special interest group". Now since your for "fair use", why haven't you formed a special interest group and sent it to Washington?
"you fail to explain why a writer or coder is somehow more deserving than a plumber who cannot write plumbing 1.0 and then sit on his fscking a$$ for the rest of his life. People sitting around doing nothing their whole lives are just as indicitave of "imperfections in the system" as the unemployed poor."
Deserving of what? The opportunity to be compensated for their efforts? The right to not be ripped off by the dishonest? To quote Linus, "he who writes the code, writes the license". You don't like the terms under which one's work is being offered then don't enter into a reciprocal agreement with them, but don't steal it either.
"Try working for a living. Done writing a book or some code? Write some more! If your product is worth it, and you price your code correctly, you will make enough money to support you and your family in non-extravagant way - like the plumber. If your project requires more people, scale up accordingly, but stop looking to retire rich and live the rest of your life like f-ing bobby brown and that crack hoe whitney houston."
Suffering from envy, are we? What Whitney Houston or Bobby brown gets are based on contract law. You know? A reciprocal agreement between two people. We all have those, they're called "being employed". You don't like either one? Fine, don't buy anything having to do with them. And by the same token. They'll not interfere with what you think you deserve from your boss.
"Musicians, Writers, Actors are all the same, they want to hit the f-ing jackpot while the rest of us work our lives to support them. Arguments of utility to society are bullshit. how did brad pitt make my life better than the guy who unplugs the sewer, or the laid off engineer who designed my 802.11 pcb?"
Now I'm convinced you're suffering from envy. One in case your memory is short? I have two words for you. Dot-com. There was just as m
"Personally, I don't believe the government should pass laws protecting such a system, any more than the government should pass laws prohibiting one. Let the authors do what they will, and succeed or fail on their own efforts"
Then you shouldn't have a problem with the abolishment of all the laws surrounding your job.
"not some artifically mandated scarcity backed by the government."
*sigh* For the one billionth time. The scarcity in question is those individuals that can take an idea and place it in a form we all can use. There's nothing "artificial" about that.
If google print becomes a success, it will mean a huge loss in sale if the book is *not* in the index.
When you make a google print search, you get a box in the left for each hit, with suggestions where you can buy the book.
Sure, some people will not buy the book because they can get the small part they need from the scanned pages. But a lot more people will only know the boox exists because they find it with Google Print, and if the book is any good, some of them will buy it.
Books are not like music, most people will prefer the analog version over an online version where you can search your way to scanned extracts.
I expect very few publishers to "opt-out" of the index.
Doesn't seem like you're getting close.