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Authors Guild Sues Google Over Print Program
heavy snowfall writes to tell us that The Authors Guild has filed a class action lawsuit against Google. The lawsuit claims that Google's scanning and digitizing of library books as a part of the Google Print Project constitutes "massive copyright infringement". In addition to the lawsuit The Authors Guild has also issued a press release to explain its actions.
Fuck... Google is actively scanning and indexing our books and offering around 7 pages of 'spoiler' content before forcing us to buy it through Amazon or five other online stores. This can't be good for us, what can we do? OMFGCOPYRIGHTINFRINGEMENT
Google Print Program allows me to search the text of books in print, I can see each hit as a book and also the search in context (i.e. browse a sample chapter that contains the search), and Google provides links so that I can purchase the book online.
Don't these authors want to sell their books? It is not like I can download the whole text (unless I actually knew a set of unique searches that would mean I could access each chapter as a sample), so where is the copyright infringement?
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
This kind of crap just irritates me. Copyright laws are painfully outdated in the digital age, and yet time and time again those who sell information (in whatever format, music, movie, now books) are constantly standing in the way of progress. What we need is the free and unrestricted flow of information. I've looked over Google Print, and i see nothing for these authors to object over. If anything, its a massive windfall for them, its the perfect resource for finding a relevant book on a given topic. Need a book on differential forms and tensor calculus? Thousands and thousands of results. Its essentially free and unlimited advertising. If Google combined this with pblishing on demand, they could put every publisher in existence not only out of business, but do it while offering far better deals for the authors.
Afaik they are still copyrighted (at least most of them).
However, google does seem to have contracts with certain libraries to scan their books, so they are not just randomly grabbing copyrighted material and scanning it.
If this is enough to make what they are doing legal is a question I simply can't answer, but suits like the one at hand should clear this situation up.
Finally, I can understand that some people find what google is doing problematic, on the other hand I really think that it is extremely usefull, so I hope that the issues will be resolved in a way that addresses the problems, but still makes it possible for people to use this great service.
Google did talk to the associated press, however.
A sues B. B sues C. C sues everybody.
I think China (that comunist country) is going to be the next Big Fish, because enterprises are more interested in get easy money suing everybody than in make new products or offer new services. And they make consumer electronic that sux because you are a potentia Pirate so the devices decides what you can do and what you can't do.
I for one welcom or new chinese overlords.
My city: Barcelona.
It is with some shock that I read about your latest decision to take legal action against Google, which could, and should, be interpreted as a direct attack against a more progressive and free society.
Whether or not you approve of Google, the company's "libarary" program has made a bold move towards an age where information is searchable to everyone. The ability to see inside a book, albeit only an excerpt at a time, which is stored deep within a vault on the otherside of the globe has to be a great thing. This assists everyone from casual browsers of the internet to academic reseachers, such as myself. Upon utilising the search engine and associated search algorithms we can look and search within every title and work for relevant information, and disregard the irrelevancies, with no more hassle than a couple of clicks on a browser. This is a far greater model than the overburdening and cumbersome system currently in operation, where books have to be physically sought after, a greatly innefficient, resource consuming and wasteful affair.
Surely Google's system represents an electronic library bookshelf of infinite size, where the user can browse at will until the relevant material is found. To sue Google is equivalent to taking legal action against the British library for allowing users to flick through books. Libraries also allows users to read the entire text of a book, not merely small excerpts, so surely there is a greater case for taking legal action against the library services of every nation, university and school in the entire world. No such action has been taken, and indeed I pray it would never be.
Indeed I agree that it is a gray area that Google is a profit making company and will be generating revenue indirectly through advertising, and possibly the sale of hard and electronic copies of the full text. Yet, had the traditional organisations of the book publishing and writing world such as yourselves, the Authors Guild, taken steps to create an electronic source back when the internet was growing the need for Google, a corporation, to do this would have been neglible. Your legal action is not a reaction against copyright infingement but an indicator of failure on your, and your peers, behalf. To prevent access to a searchable library to the entire populous of the world is to hide information and create a teired society, those who have access to the information and those that do not. This is backward and unjust.
You have failed to provide or encourage authors, your clients, to present their work in a relevant medium, electronic, to the masses, their customers, and as such have stifled your industry, the fallout and backlash is obvious to see when observing the blogging phenomena that has grown in the last few years. The Authors guild has failed to keep up with current technology and culture trends and as such has resorted to hiding behind the somewhat dated copyright laws of your country.
Whatever your views on the Google corporation it is unjust to take legal action against such a noble scheme and I urge you to revoke your action and change your policies.
I don't buy movies or music from *AA companies any more, to protest their tactics. But I have bought literally 10,000s of books in my life and will probably buy a lot more.
How can I make sure never to buy a book from an Authors Guild writer or company?
Many of you are claiming it's free advertisement, but consider the following variation where I made a complete photocopy of a book without the author's or publisher's permission, but in return advertised it to people.
By showing only a portion or sample of the work may sound fine and dandy, but if anyone can do this without permission, I can easily see this being abused. Google's setting a very risky precedent.
If I make a service called "Krunk4Ever Print", does that entitle me to the right to take any copyrighted text and digitize it into my library without permission? Though I may not be as big as Google, what gives Google the right to do it and not any small company or individual?
HD Trailers
There's not much difference, really. Both intend for you to view the contents of the book, and claim to provide a free advert. It took me 30 seconds to find a flaw in Amazon that lets me download the entirety of the book for free. So the sale is lost, and it's not advertising. Google'll be the same.
The difference is whether the publisher agrees to it. (The author has no say in this.) If you read the license agreement (yes - there is one!) when you buy the book it says "not stored in electronic retrieval format". Browsing in a bookshop doesn't break this... storing in Google Print does. This trumps all other laws of "freedom" unless a precedence is set in court.
Disclaimer: I am a writer with my books on Amazon.
What's the root of this conflict? Money!
...) get bigger exposure of their books. This might lead to the financial advantage that book sales will increase. Probably, for a lot of them this potential benefit is not enough and hard to predict on long term.
Google will probably get a lot of financial revenue from the selling ads on their pages offering book content. The copyright holders of the books (authors, publishers,
Maybe Google should treat books in the same way as websites in the adsense program. This would mean that Google shares its financial income from Google Print with the copyright holders as it does with web masters who use Google adsense on their sites. It this would seem as profitable for copyright holders as it is now for certain web masters, there could be a chance that copyright holders of book will even be eager to participate in the Google Print program.
So, Google, share your profits of Google Print with the copyright holders!
Google is not a company lacking in intelligence or money. I wonder if their using the library product to actually draw out a suit. The rationale being that copyright law and digital media has created a vast space of uncertainty around what can and can't be done with copies of a work. Google's interest in clearing out that uncertainty is that if they can legally gain the ability to selectively duplicate copyrighted content they can extend their search capabilities far beyond public content published to the web or other fora and also pull in a hefty payback from booksellers and other advertisers. They've started w/ books, but imagine if they legally could index songs, movies, and less television/radio/other media? They wouldn't allow you to have a copy of the work, but could index it, show you a clip, and point you to the correct source to purchase the rights to the media. Massive speculation on my part.
I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know the impact that this will have. I've also been around Slashdot long enough to assume that I don't have all of the facts. However, insofar as I have read to date, I'm thrilled that Google is making this effort, and while I know they're a massive corporation with far more resources than I will ever have — if they make it possible — I will do more research into the topic and consider donating to their legal defense.
Copyright is a sticky issue, and I want to see authorship be a viable profession again (it almost is now, but it's damn hard to break in, and the pay still pretty much sucks unless you are very lucky or able to write in certain niches, e.g. as a "script doctor").
However, I'm also a reader, and I am deeply saddened that we have yet to come up with a viable model for publishing un-crippled novels on the Web. Histories, reference, news and other non-fiction have found their niche, but other than video, fiction seems to be a sticking point. This one area needs to be addressed, and Google may be the irresistable force that can make the publishing industry get creative enough to find the solution.
C'mon... if we can come up with the books we can, we must be creative enough to figure out a way to make re-distributable data have value.
> > Why should I as a copyright owner have to OPT OUT of Google violating my copyright?
> > Shouldn't Google ask me for permission before copying my content?
> Because you opted in to the Internet, or more specificaly the world wide web.
> And google won't find your pages unless someone links to them
> [my emphasis], or the URL's are submitted to google.
I thought we were past the "just because it's on the web it's okay to copy it" stage. Yes, you've given implicit permission for people to view it (unless it's password-protected). But any more than that? Very questionable.
There's a fine line between caching for search purposes, and allowing access to those caches (going beyond the 'search' usage). I'd say allowing search engines unless stated otherwise is an implicit permission, but that's debatable.
Someone *else* linking to a page does *not* imply anything in particular. Submitting it to Google *might*, but not everyone has submitted their page to Google.
> If you didn't want people to view it you would take measures, such as not posting it online, or by password protecting it.
We were talking about caching, not viewing.
And, if everything's so cut and dried, consider a similar case. I posted a load of stuff to Usenet years back; no *explicit* permission was given to do stuff with what I posted. It tended to be fairly ephemeral then, the expectation being that articles would disappear after a while. Did I give permission for people to archive them for years, and make them available after ten years? Did I give permission for others to take my posts from Usenet, repackage them and post them on commercial websites (with advertisements tacked on), often made to appear as if they were posted to that website's groups rather than Usenet?
I still occasionally post to Usenet under an alias, and I still don't consider that I give implied permission (even now) for that last case. Just because "it happens" doesn't make it legal. On the other hand, the original Usenet "implied permissions" (e.g. copying my post from server to server across the world) still apply; some might argue that the newer ones do too.
Anyway, IANAL, but you can see that something fairly simple like that really isn't. You seem to think that putting something on the web implies a whole raft of implied permissions, but I'm sure that few of these would be entirely undisputed in court if push came to shove.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
This is like saying that you print off a photograph from the net and display it in your home/private office and just because you ocassionaly have business meetings there and people see it then your are using someone's copyrighted content for profit. Google is attempting to offer a new service to the general public while at the same time protecting copyright holders. The only thing I see wrong with this, is everyone that can is trying to pull an RI/MPAA and suing Google for anything they can.
Quite honestly, I don't think Google is the one that should do this. I think the Library of Congress should have done this YEARS ago. Sure they have to some extent, but not even a good fraction of the extent that Google wishes to accomplish.
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
I wonder why the AG hasn't done what Google is doing, to being able to search in books is one of the most sought after features among report writers I work with, it's the holy grail. there seems to have been no steps at all to acheive this during the 10 years of "internet revolution".
/Erik
Google press (or something simmilar), is one of the biggest steps we have made for a long while. I really hate that you can be so narrow mind to protest against it, are they afraid of having their scripts up for the whole world to search in?
Sure they can protest against copyright infringment, it's their right. But the question is what's the best solution, just to protest or offer a real solution to a real problem?
Best whishes
Ahh, but its a win win situation where the copyright holder (who was innocently assuming that they held the right to copy, surely they worked tirelessly and spend endless bribes in effords to nail it down for so many years) wasn't informed in advance that Google started ripping their print collection.
And that is why they are so pissed off.
They are probably actually not too afraid of Google starting to "leak" information,.. they go to some length to safeguard their procedures.
But how about the 13,000 websites that follow them doing the same thing? With Google's precedent, they can follow and start scanning to their hearts desire. They are sure to follow, funded by some entrepreneurial investors who will quickly fill the niches that Google deems unworthy for now.
One of them goes bust or gets hacked, and suddenly you have black market DVD's with every single SF novel published since 1950 appearing from China... (oh the horror!) Once the information bird is free from its cage it will fly.
Which brings me back to my earlier point of a copyright free zone, Google could get its sites certified and licenced to warehouse copyrighted knowlegde following proper safeguards to avoid such "radioactive" leaks.
Either that, or give up on copyright completely.
Lets keep in mind a few things.
Google is being sued for a service that is not available to the public (or anyone).
Google has not yet even provided details about what the service actually is.
If they were not actually making copies of the text but, instead were building search trees, then they would be doing nothing illegal. Just this would have a great potential.
Hell, they could be building a modern library of Alexandria for safe keeping, or maybe they are brute force training language interpretation software, maybe the GoogleCluster has become self aware and its studying us humans.
I'm just sick of everyone jumping into a lawsuit before they even know what they are suing someone for. These guys are probably just using legal trickery to set up a precedent for compensation of digially distributed works instead of 'negotiating' contracts like in the old days.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
That's the "copy" part of "copyright". A library may lend a book to as many people as they like - one at a time. They may not copy it. The right to produce copies of a book is reserved to the author. Copy. Right.
Got it?
A library specifically may make a copy, according to copyright law
Also, there are a number of criteria that are to be used to determine fair use. Copyright is not nearly as absolute as Holywood would lead you to believe.
As for Google, they are not providing whole books in readable form except when the books are in the public domain, so I think they have a good case to make that this is a fair use under copyright law.
Got it?
>> First of all the content of public web sites is
>> generally freely available to all.
>
> And the contents of the libraries Google is
> scanning are not?
No they are not. To go read something at the Harvard Library I need to purchase a plane ticket and go there in person, and then if someone else has the book I'm interested in then I might have to wait for a long time. Now if I want to actually borrow the book I need to be faculty or a student, neither are an option for me at this point.
With Google Print the library concept becomes global, shared with all and free of charge.
You'd have to be pretty disingenuous to compare both cases.
> Now Google has added library books and you can
> view a page or two of the book to determine if
> it is a book you want to buy or check out from a > library.
It is way more than that. You can copy the pages and keep them forever, you can redistribute them without any effort. With a bit of patience and organisation you can in fact copy the whole book.
Furthermore, google will be sitting on a huge pile of data no one has ever had: the digitized and OCRed content of (potentially) all books on the surface of the planet. Who will have control over this? a disjointed band of publishers with no direct access to the data or Google itself?
What happens if Google goes out of business? what if they decide they want to sell this data? is it valuable? you bet! who would get the money?
What happens if organized people hack into the system, copy all and start selling those like allofmp3 is doing now?
The issue is control. Publishers are afraid of that.
> You have looked at the Google pages right? You
> know they only let you see a few pages of most
> books and only public domain books and books
> whose copyright holder has given permission are
> shown in their entirety right?
Wrong. You can search all books in their entirety. You can display almost any page. There are some non-severe limitations but this is not the point.
The point is that publishers believe they own the *content* of books still under copyright, and right now Google is disseminating that content pretty much willy-nilly. They have every right to complain IMHO.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of what Google is doing, I love books and being able to read bits of them. This is a brilliant service !
I am not a member of the Author's Guild, but I do support their actions in this case, and I think that some of your points should be answered. You have raised an interesting argument, but I'm afraid that you are misinformed in quite a few places.
First, Google's "Library" program is not a bold move to make information searchable. When I started my first degree in 1995, from my own university library I could search for books by keyword from any university library on the continent, and borrow them through inter-library loan. Google's program would be a bit more comprehensive, but it is still more of the same. As for making older books available, the Gutenberg Project was the pioneer, not Google. Google is basically doing something similar, but with more money, and less tactfully.
Second, the library system doesn't quite work as you seem to believe it works. Libraries loan books out, but they do not publish them or distribute them. The closest they come is to sell off some of their older copies. And, when you take out a book from a library, a small royalty is paid to the author. There is a large line between loaning a book out and making hundreds of photocopies of that book without permission, and libraries do not cross it, although you are suggesting in this letter that they do.
Third, you are using technology issues to obscure the actual issue. The fact that Google is a profit making company is irrelevant to the complaint. The size of the database is irrelevant to the complaint. The complaint revolves around the fact that before copying material still in copyright, Google did not ask for permission. Besides being a matter of common courtesy, it would have been a simple matter to send a form letter explaining the project, and so long as the terms are not unreasonable, most of the authors I know, including myself, would actually support such a thing. However, as a matter of principle, you have to ask first.
Fourth, you are suggesting that authors and publishers are in some conspiracy to hide books from the general public. Besides being completely illogical (it would require that publishers deliberately shoot themselves in the foot sales-wise), it is also quite silly. Why would anybody want to create a society like this, particularly when all it would do is limit markets and create injustice? Most books are not state secrets. Sometimes a suit for copyright infringement is just a suit for copyright infringement.
Finally, and related to this odd conspiracy theory, you have conveniently forgotten that artists, musicians, and writers are often the most socially active people around. Harlan Ellison marched in the Civil Rights march around Alabama in the late '60s. A number of well known writers drove ambulances in World War II. The first thing any tyranny does once it takes control, from Stalin to Hitler, is put controls on the artistic professions. Quite frankly, your letter is a slap in all of our collective faces. We've fought against injustice around the world, and some of us have even been imprisoned, forced to flee our homes, or murdered for it. Our writing helps drive social progress. Many of us use our pens to stand up for YOUR rights, but what happens when we stand up for ours? We get accused of holding the world back, and in your letter, being part of some conspiracy to create what amounts to a tyranny. Perhaps you should actually read the Berne Convention, and try to understand just what rights we claim. You'll find that they are quite reasonable.
But regardless of this slap in the face, we will continue to fight against injustice with our pens. We will continue to drive society forward. We will continue to fight for YOUR rights in the best ways we know how. All we ask is that when we shed our metaphorical blood, sweat, and tears on your behalf, that you respect us for it, and respect our wishes regarding what we create. And if you can't give us that, I only have two words to say to you.
The second is "you". The first begins with "F". I think you can figure it out on your own.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
http://www.eff.org/IP/Linking/Kelly_v_Arriba_Soft/ 20030707_9th_revised_ruling.pdf
I believe this court decision should establish a precedent that the judge will be more likely to adhere to than not. However, I really hope Google wins and the precedent is upholded. If not, the floodgates would be open to all sorts of lawsuits by content owners against search engines, and web applications.