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The Implications of Google's Digital Library
Connectmc wrote to mention a CNN article discussing Google's Digital Library project. From the article: "Tony Sanfilippo is of two minds when it comes to Google's ambitious program to scan millions of books and make their text fully searchable on the Internet. On the one hand, Sanfilippo credits the program for boosting sales of obscure titles at Penn State University Press, where he works. On the other, he's worried that Google's plans to create digital copies of books obtained directly from libraries could hurt his industry's long-term revenues."
Seems to me that very few would object to Google creating and running a library on the model of public libraries. I go to our library two or three times each week to get books, music, and movies. I return the things I've borrowed and someone else borrows them.
Here's the problem: the digital stuff, especially the music, is very easy to copy. I copy some of it. The books however, are too difficult to copy and I don't need to own a copy anyway. (I've moved enough times in my life to realize how much books weigh and noticed that the library is significanly cheaper and Barnes & Noble or Amazon.)
But if Google runs a library, everything will be digital. That's fine if what they were lending was in the public domain, but, thanks to Disney et. al., public domain is a thing of the past.
Seems to me that a Google library will be a marketplace for copying. Then again, most of the people who run Google are about a foot and a half smarter than I am. So maybe they have this all figured out.
I'm curious to see what they come up with.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
A bookseller who's worried that making books that are in the public domain available on the net will hurt his revenues.
The initial reaction I have is, 'Cry me a river.' These are books in the public domain and are meant to be freely available to everyone. Google's just making it easier.
My second reaction is that he might have a point, and he's deserving of some sympathy. But then I realize that he's a university bookseller. The books people pay for college and university classes are overpriced as it is, ($80 for my USED calculus text, and that was ten years ago; I can only imagine how much it is now.) Somehow I don't think that a university bookstore is going to be hurting all THAT much. So this is just another case of someone whose industry needs to 'evolve or die.' Though he really only has to worry if the textbook publishers 'evolve' before he does.
Besides, the printed word isn't going out of style anytime soon. There are plenty of books I prefer to have in dead tree form, to hold and read and carry with me on trips when I don't have or don't WANT to have my laptop with me. And what a lot of us on slashdot seem to forget is that not everyone in the world has a laptop or a PDA with e-book software on it.
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
Google is using other people's intellectual property to create new publisher's value. That's not the same as creating something entirely new that obsoletes something that previously exists — and what Google is doing is forbidden by law.
If we don't like copyright law, then it needs to be changed. In the interim, Google is clearly in the wrong if they publish anything without the explicit permission of any rights-holders in the domain of said publishing. I fully expect them to get burned by this.
Copyrights exist for a reason. Current copyright law is in my opinion excessively biased in favor of the rights-holders, but we need to change that, not break the law. If we don't want copyright at all, again, the law needs to be changed. Nothing about the current situation makes what Google is doing right.
Disclosure: I own a literary agency.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I might agree with you on books that are still in print. However, for books that are no longer being printed, a socially responsible publisher would release the publication into public domain when it has run it's commercial course. I particularly loved the publisher who said it was not the pubisher's responibility to police their copyrights. "We don't know if we published it or not, but we sure don't want you to be able to use it!" Wow. If you don't know whether it's yours, then you are not generating revenue on it any longer. Put it, then, where it truly belongs: in the hands of the public. There are so many useful things that could be done with it! But since you aren't generating money with it, and don't ever intend to, GIVE IT TO THE PUBLIC! Unfortunately, Congress has mangled and bungled copyright law to the point that this doesn't happen automatically anymore, and never will. So the onus is on the publisher and/or author to earn a little karma and give back to the public. Do it!
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
how about we donate our time and energy writing and making new compilations in our spare time and help out those less fortunate gain access to fundamental public domain knowledge?
copyright is an abomination, in terms of mother nature and human morality.
it is UNNATURAL. that much is certain. the original agreement between the public and the authors was that they would have a limited monopoly after which the information/knowledge would fall BACK into the public domain.
everything that is published by default is in the public domain. but through copyright, we're trying to encourage new works that in a few measly years would become widely available to the public for just the price of duplication. NOT waiting after the heat death of the universe for it to come back to the public domain. NOT having laws like the DMCA and all the like preventing us making use of products we paid for.
the cartels broke the contract. period. everyone is entitled to judge for themselves if they wish to continue with copyright law is as or if they wish to rewrite it for themselves.
and as for the shills who argue straight-faced that copyright = property, why is there any time limit on it then? clearly, property belongs to you forever (forever as in scientifically, not the supreme court's time dilation experiment which makes 100 years + authors life seem "limited").
that's the argument you make when shills bring up that copyright is a natural right, like property rights. then by that definition, it should, logically and ethically, belong to that person forever.
no, the original contract (and even the extremely perverse version of copyright laws we have now) say that the author is given temporary exclusivity to their "compilation" (knowledge isn't created or destroyed) in order to promote progess of science and the arts such that the copyrighted material is soon brought BACK into the public domain from which it sprang.
you cannot promote progress of science and arts through the use of property rights... because property rights last forever... even if the owner dies, they can leave it to their children and so on.
so no, the shills have it wrong and hope we aren't paying attention.
copyright is an UNNATURAL right GRANTED by the government on behalf of the public to encourage progress in the science and the arts through having a LIMITED (that's like saying if i have a penny, then i am almost a millionare... too bad sane judges would throw you out of court if you argued that using that type of logic) monopoly, from which the author would profit and then give it back to the public domain from which it came.
throw that in the shills' faces when they have the nerve to hide among us and promote their sick and anti-public agendas.
the contract is severly broken. any other legal contract that was violated would be decided by the courts but money speaks louder than logic and contracts. and frankly, the dumbasses in the supreme court thought that 100 years + the authors lifetime is LIMITED. they need to have the decency to say they are incompetent and step down.
and please no replies about how this is all about "piracy" because as you have noticed, the argument isn't even remotely related to not paying for products. it is about cartels that broke the agreement. and if you do see people trying to make this about "piracy", call them for what they are.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
Perhaps not a very helpful analogy. How about, "Buggy whip stores concerned that rampant theft of buggy whips from the factory will reduce retail demand." OK, not the best analogy either, but the point is that someone who goes to a lot of trouble (and time, and money) to produce something that people will want for their education and entertainment are not going to be buggy-whipped out of demand.
Even that doesn't apply to the situation. The most relevant passage in the article was the guy claiming the burden of producing the titles they don't want copied shouldn't be on them because they don't really know about all of their old titles.
That just proves what a crock these near-eternal copyrights are. These companies aren't selling or reprinting the old books - they don't even know their titles. They just don't want anyone else to get any use from them. This continual lockout is the exact opposite of the result intended by the original copyright law. I say good for Google. This is information that not only wants to be free but should be free according to the law when it was written.