Slashdot Mirror
Google Responds to Authors Guild Lawsuit
Phoe6 writes "Google has responded to the Authors' Guild lawsuit of "massive copyright infringement". They point out that the Library Project is 'fully consistent with both the fair use doctrine under U.S. copyright law and the principles underlying copyright law itself, which allow everything from parodies to excerpts in book reviews.'"
No different that cataloging the internet...which they also did without the copyright owners consent.
I'm just waiting for Google to release Suegle.
Enter the name of the person/company you want to sue and click "Sue". We'll e-mail the court date to you, along with relevant precedent to your GMail account!
3rd google article in two days...
a well, if you ask me there is nothing wrong with the way google does this. they do not make the entire book availible, only very small parts of it. and if I remember right, amazon has been doing the same thing too for quite some time.. they just didn't have a search engine to search through ALL the books.. you could only search in one.
If slashdot can make money off posting dupes, why can't dupes make money off posting on slashdot? ;}
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
If I remember correctly, mp3.com was found to be guilty of making internal copies of all the CD's they touched. Isn't Google doing the same thing, eg. making a massive amount of copies of the books they touch? Insofar as it isn't legal for other corporations to put entire books through the photocopy machine, or use a single copy of software across all computers (without a corporate license)?
They will get more exposure of their books and the service probably lift their sales, cant their greedy minds understand it?.
The use of from...to implies it's a range. So while it's possible that it's similar to saying "integers from 1 to 2", it could also be from 1 to 100 and they're glossing over the 2 to 99 part.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Wow- before you quickly jump to Google's defense- Consider this: Wouldn't you feel awful if other people were able to read all of our informative and insightful posts without compensating us?
Which begs the question- has anyone ever trademarked the penisbird?
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
The article Google's response points to a case that they are claiming set the precedent for search engine use of copyrighted material, including for commercial purposes:
The leading decision that considered the fair use issues relating to search engine operations is Kelly v. Arriba Soft, 336 F.3d 811 (9th Cir. 2003). Arriba Soft operated a search engine for Internet images. Arriba compiled a database of images by copying pictures from websites, without the express authorization of the website operators. Arriba reduced the full size images into thumbnails, which it stored in its database. In response to a user query, the Arriba search engine displayed responsive thumbnails. If a user clicked on one of the thumbnails, she was linked to the full size image on the original website from which the image had been copied. Kelly, a photographer, discovered that some of the photographs from his website were in the Arriba search database, and he sued for copyright infringement. The lower court found that Arriba's reproduction of the photographs was a fair use, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed. With respect to the first factor, "the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature," 17 U.S.C. 107(1), the Ninth Circuit acknowledged that Arriba operated its site for commercial purposes. However, Arriba's use of Kelly's images was more incidental and less exploitative in nature than more traditional types of commercial use. Arriba was neither using Kelly's images to directly promote its web site nor trying to profit by selling Kelly's images. Instead, Kelly's images were among thousands of images in Arriba's search engine database. Because the use of Kelly's images was not highly exploitative, the commercial nature of the use weighs only slightly against a finding of fair use.
This is just another indication of stupid industry groups. It's not limited to commercial media, folks.
It seems like very time someone comes up with some cool thing that makes the consumer's life easier, the affected industry panicks and attempts to get the technology quashed. In this case I'd think that authors would want their material easily referenced in part, because they might actually sell copies if people need the information. Without something like this available, authors have more chance of remaining in obscurity or never having the chance to share their work with a larger audience.
Industry groups are just dumb.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
> amazon has been doing the same thing too for quite some time.
Amazon does this with the participation of the publisher, and there are no excepts printed if the publisher objects.
Google turns this on its head and says publishers must opt out.
It's totally different.
What TFA does mention, but kind of glosses over, is that copyright holders have to opt-out of having their works marked as 'not copyrighted'. It seems that Google is being a little disingenuous. They know that not all copyright holders will opt out. It's kind of like saying 'If Tom Clancy does tell me otherwise, he won't mind if I photocopy his new book from the library.' IANAL, but I think it should be an opt-in system, no?
This post cannot be rebroadcast without the express written constent of Major League Baseball.
This is something that, in my opinion, should clearly be opt-in, not opt-out. Google makes you jump through some hoops to stop them from slurping your material. Why is the burden placed on the copyright holder? If Google wants the information, Google should do the work. Of course, the minor fiasco with opt-in with Google Video proves that Google isn't up to the task. They recognized their failing and instead of trying to correct it, they decided to reverse the direction to the disadvantage of copyright holders. I know you want to automate everything Google, but sometimes hiring a staff to do real work is necessary.
From Google, re: removing your book.
"If you're not a Google Print partner and want us to avoid your books, you'll need to provide us with a small amount of information about yourself as well as a list of the books you don't want in Google Print. Unless you specify otherwise, we'll use your information only to verify that you are indeed the copyright holder of that particular book."
But books are not.
Also, to be honest, times change. Because Web search engines existed before today's copyright madness, they've been effectively grandfathered in. Libraries are the same way; if they were invented today the Author's Guild would probably be lobbying against them.
In order to have an opinion on this whole copyright thing between google and authors/publishers I would like to know the following. How is google going to keep people/organizations from creating or otherwise attaining large server farms or some method to fool googles methods of detecting unique visitors. I mean if such a server farm or something like it can be created/obtained, couldn't one theroretically compile whole texts. In essense getting digital copies of whole libraries? If so, publishers and authors should be very concerned and either should be working with google to solve this issue or sueing them. If not, and this very well may be the case because google as a company is just smart then these publishers/authors are just greedy jerks and should be publically flogged. Does anyone know how google combats the problem of people/organisations compiling whole works?
My +5 Insightful, Interesting, Informative and Funny post are free.
Now the -1 Troll and -1 Flamebait stuff...that I want money for.
...which allow everything from parodies to excerpts in book reviews.
Are they going to have reviews? Otherwise their use doesn't seem to fall under that.
No. They're going to be verbatim parodies of the original.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Who cares if it falls under those specific examples of "fair use."
This is from copyright.gov:
One of the rights accorded to the owner of copyright is the right to reproduce or to authorize others to reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords. This right is subject to certain limitations found in sections 107 through 118 of the copyright act (title 17, U.S. Code). One of the more important limitations is the doctrine of "fair use." Although fair use was not mentioned in the previous copyright law, the doctrine has developed through a substantial number of court decisions over the years. This doctrine has been codified in section 107 of the copyright law.
Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered "fair," such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:
1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
I think google's implementation of this project very clearly falls under scholarship and/or research purposes. Giving the reader brief snippets of the written work along with bibliographical information so they can find a copy of the work themselves certainly satisfies (3) by not reproducing a substantial portion of the work and (4) by, quite possibly, increasing the demand for the work when users desire to seek out a copy to actually read/study.
to be copied into googles database(which is what they really mean with 'indexing) you can tell them that you don't want your book in it. basically googles stance is that they can do whatever they want with the librarys books unless you specificially tell them to not do it - which is a bit strange, like stealing candy and then saying there wasnt a specific sign saying that you can't steal candy when someone says wtf you're doing...
oh and if authors don't do anything?
****
5. What happens if I do nothing?
If your book is scanned from a library, we'll help users discover it through Google Print and Google. When they click through to view the book, they will be able to see only the limited excerpt view. This view includes links to purchase the book, but will not include a link directly to your website or any additional branding. There will be no advertisements on these pages.
******
which actually sounds a bit funny as they seem to be searchable in full and basically readable in full as well(they wanted a login to view all pages though from some quick stuff I searched through. they do add "copyrighted material" text to the side of the page but that's kind of "no shit sherlock". bottom line being that they did in fact copy the entire books to their database without asking the authors at all.
now if that's OK how about i make a record library and let everyone walk in and copy("index") every record i got there for flat fee of 3$. the library did basically just that anyways so it must be ok if i do it too, right?
making indexes that contain the copyrighted material in full is copying - or else we would have a very convinient loophole to destroy all copyrights...
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Until you've used the Google tool, please don't post on its merits or dangers. From what I've seen using the tool it really looks to be useful for researchers and students. Claiming this is stealing from authors it completely wrong headed. If anything this is a giant electronic library card catalog tool.
Corporate America of course won't be happy until you pay a per-word usage fee for reading a library book.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Isn't this exactly what MP3.com did years ago with CDs. Behind the scenes they copied every CD they could get there hands on. Then they were able to copy these mp3's into the accounts of users that actually had the physical cd.
When they were sued out of existence, they basically lost not because they were giving users mp3's...but because they had created copies of copyright works into their database.
Just the act of making the original copy into their own database is where they broke the copyright. I think this is where Google might run into some serious problems.
If MP3.com could not do this years ago with CDs, why should Google be allowed to do this now with books?
I'm not saying what is right or wrong. These are just examples of how copyright is hurting the public interest rather than helping...as is the purpose of copyrights.
In this case, Google is scanning books, then adding this content to the internet.
Not exactly. Their scanning them in full but adding them to a searchable database. What a search reveals is a small excerpt containing the search string (or portions thereof). The only way the entire content would be made available this way is if the author repeated the search string in every sentence.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
If a book is out of print it is unlikely that the publisher will opt-in. In particular, if the publisher is out of business there may be no way to opt-in at all, ensuring that those works will be lost forever.
And as a practical matter, Amazon/A9 already took care of indexing the books whose publishers are willing to opt-in.
Who cares if it falls under those specific examples of "fair use."
This is from copyright.gov:
One of the rights accorded to the owner of copyright is the right to reproduce or to authorize others to reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords. This right is subject to certain limitations found in sections 107 through 118 of the copyright act (title 17, U.S. Code). One of the more important limitations is the doctrine of "fair use." Although fair use was not mentioned in the previous copyright law, the doctrine has developed through a substantial number of court decisions over the years. This doctrine has been codified in section 107 of the copyright law.
Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered "fair," such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:
1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
I think google's implementation of this project very clearly falls under scholarship and/or research purposes. Giving the reader brief snippets of the written work along with bibliographical information so they can find a copy of the work themselves certainly satisfies (3) by not reproducing a substantial portion of the work and (4) by, quite possibly, increasing the demand for the work when users desire to seek out a copy to actually read/study.
Opt-out is correct, and generous. Libraries have special privileges under copyright; Google is providing an archival service to the libraries for the libraries' own lawfully-held books. Authors cannot opt-out of the lending library system.
No doubt there are two problems with this: the first seems to be that authors (to the best of my knowledge) haven't been asked either piecemeal or via organizations like the Authors' Guild for permission. The second is that Google will no doubt be making money as a result of providing this service and everybody else wants a cut.
However, we have reached an unfortunate point with copyright and fair use where we'd rather halt innovation than admit that copyright holders' expectations have reached a point of making it cost- and time-prohibitive to meet their demands and are to the point of stagnating not only the public domain but technologies and services that deliver or even touch upon copyrighted content. In this sense, creating a scenario that is not unlike the movie industry's dire predictions about the VCR in the early 80s.
It would be best, of course, for Google to attempt to work out an amiable solution with authors without crippling their service to an unreasonable extent, but I feel that the intent of fair use (if not its prevailing interpretation) falls in their favor... as does the bottom-line for both Google and the membership of the Authors' Guild.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I e-mailed Google to ask if I could get my search results to show up on regular google searches, and they said they were studying the possibility. I think what that really means is, they got sued, and they're looking around for a life preserver because they don't know what to do. IIRC, there actually was a period where my books would show up on a regular google search, but now they don't, which is probably google's way of reducing their liability.
It's too bad that the opt-in publishers' program and the opt-out library-based program seem to be joined together in this way, since the former could have been a really good program, but the legal problems with the latter are dragging it down.
Find free books.
If this were "evil" you might have a point.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
What TFA does mention, but kind of glosses over, is that copyright holders have to opt-out of having their works marked as 'not copyrighted'. It seems that Google is being a little disingenuous.
IANAL, but have done some research into copyright law. Copyright exists not only to protect the author/publisher, but also to provide legal access to information. By copyrighting a book, the publisher has agreed to allow fair use of the material. Google is allowing opt-out as a courtesy to publishers, not through any legal obligation.
Perhaps I don't know what I'm talking about here, but my understanding was there were limits on what one could do with library books. For instance, I didn't think you could photocopy the entire thing. Likewise, my understanding is that a private citizen couldn't scan a copyrighted book and put it on the internet without the author's express permission. That's exactly what Google is doing. They are assuming permission to put scanned copyrighted material online, and only applying the normal copyright protections (like only showing short passages) if the author/copyright holder opts-in.
This post cannot be rebroadcast without the express written constent of Major League Baseball.
This was linked to in TFA (http://news.com.com/Authors+Guild+sues+Google+ove r+library+project/2100-1030_3-5875384.html) from http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/21/04 4228&tid=217&tid=17
I guess the editors don't RTFA?
Interesting. I interpreted the article differntly, but I stand corrected.
This post cannot be rebroadcast without the express written constent of Major League Baseball.
1) For publishers, this could eventually really change things if google print ever endorsed one particular publisher for one-offs of out of print material. 2) For Authors, google print could become large enough that it would essentially be its own marketing channel. As it would be owned by google, authors would then have to accept whatever monopolistic terms google dictated to fulfill what might be perceived as a business necessity. I think that google print is the coolest thing since sliced bread, but I can understand a little bit why the other side might be concerned. My personal view is that the social value of google print is worth the potential cost to authors and publishers- but then again I don't put food on the table by writing or publishing books.
The best lack all convictions, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. -Yeats, The Second Coming
While I can understand some of the angst people are directing at Google, here's the real issue:
How the hell do you practically determine (let alone contact) the current copyright holder for books that have long been out of print?
Amazon hasn't faced this problem because they actually sell books. Amazon is only scanning and making searchable those books that it can obtain and sell -- and hence can contact the publisher. It's not an issue of Amazon being "honorable" and Google not.
Google is going to be rendering searchable books that you can't find on Google, or in Barnes & Noble, but only in your library, or maybe a distant university library. If they had the burden of tracking down who, if anyone, still cares about the book, it would remain lost to you. What Google is doing is simply saying, "if you care about your book, just let us know."
And then when you contact Google, proving you're actually the copyright holder isn't an onerous "hoop" you have to jump through. Frankly, I'm surprised you're complaining about it. Even the DMCA requires copyright holders to prove they hold the copyright when they issue a takedown notice.
Aren't they the ones supplying the data to Google?
Are libraries explicitly permitted by the copyright holders to give that information to Google?
Here's an interesting light that i don't think anyone has bothered addressing. Yes we know the authors might or might not be up in arms about this, but what about the teachers? IF the service really works as they say, then students would be able to quickly search out phrases or texts from books, something a lot of current "educators" use as homework questions since it's pretty impossible to know where they are unless you've read the book. But hey, now we have google? Pretty soon you'll see all schools banning google just because it's getting too useful!
You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
But, you're wrong anyway. They cache pages, and they also store enough of every page they index to return an appropriate excerpt of the page in your search results.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
fully consistent with both the fair use doctrine under U.S. copyright law and the principles underlying copyright law itself
After extensive undermining of copyright law it was determined that there are no underlying principles anymore.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Sorry, where I come from that's called software piracy and is definately illegal.
Not if it's the functional equivalent of a screen shot.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
The Author's Guild also was the organization that attacked Amazon for selling used books. (Previously reported by /..)
I know a couple of best-selling authors personally, and none of them have a high opinion of the Author's Guild.
I would agree with Google and say that they have an open and shut case, but I thought that about mp3.com, too. Remember in that case, even though it is 100% legal to format shift, and that is what mp3.com was doing (you had to have access to a legit CD before mp3.com would give you access to the same songs in mp3 format), they got the crap beat out of them when it actually went to trial.
Our courts are behind the times and are consistently siding with the entrenched industry, it seems.
Anyway, I seem to remember mp3.com sued their lawfirm, which told them what they were doing would hold up in court. Does anyone know how that turned out?
Usurper_ii
Ron Paul
Copyright is not absolute. If I write a story and publish it with a banner that says "You may not copy any of this at all", you can ignore that. The fair use doctrine says, essentially, that as long as my use of the material doesn't negatively impact the copyright owner's use in a commercially significant way, I don't infringe.
In general, as long as your use of the material is different from the copyright owner's, you are free to use it. Making a parody, making a sculpture from AOL CDs, etc., are fair use because the new work is different from the original.
You can take excerpts of otherwise restricted material, as long as the excerpt is small in relation to the overall original.
Whether someone qualifies as a "library" or an "archive" or not depends on their use of the material. Libraries and archives get a pass to use things because they serve the public good, rather than their own. If Google's archive depresses sales of the works in question, they
are guilty of copyright infringement.
Reviewers and news reporters (and bloggers) can use restricted material with more latitude than others.
You have more latitude if you are using the work non-commercially, less if you use it commercially.
You can *always* use a work to compare its copyright status with other works. In other words, you can't claim copyright on something similar to other stuff and expect no challenges.
You have more latitude if your use of the work isn't a "spoiler" for the original. For instance, publishing the most interesting chapter of a Harry Potter book would probably infringe, but publishing the table of contents for something hardly ever would.
Finally, if your use of the work precludes the original author from making a similar use of it, you probably are out of bounds. Those cases are rare, like making a movie out of a book or a computer game from a movie. Usually there is another flaw in the use. The main thing here is you can't be in direct competition with the copyright holder.
But each copyright case is considered unique, which can make case law difficult to use in arguing a case or knowing how a judge will decide. There are a few important cases, but mostly it's the statutes and common law.
I work in a university library which is trying to go as digital as possible. The publishers are bending us over a barrel and fucking us in the arse with fees, fees which when not paid result in all future access being cut off. Google is a for-profit corporation selling branded advertising which believes it has more fair use rights than us, an actual "scholarly" institution? Jesus fucking christ. I was working in a copy shop when the SCOTUS dropped the hammer on Kinko's as to the line between "fair use" and duplication for profit. It hasn't moved much since then, and it'll be damned interesting to see SCOTUS reverse itself on this.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
I should point out that I'm talking about what is made available rather than what is scanned.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Authors cannot opt-out of the lending library system.
Sure they can.
All they have to do go to every lending library in the world and check out the books they wrote. Then simply not return them.
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
IANAL (I am not a lawyer), but IAAL (I am a Librarian). While I personally agree that there *should* be the ability to digitize these collections and make them searchable, I think Google's in a whole heck of a mess here.
I don't think that this is necessarily fair use. The article linked to in post presents a case which relates to images, and traditionally copyright around images has been dealt with much differently than copyright related to texts, so I'm not sure how relevant the stated case might be. That being said, the one major flaw I see is that the libraries Google is partnering with purchased the books, and Google is 'borrowing' those books. If I borrow a book from my library, I am not allowed to photocopy the entire book. Maybe the Library has the right to do so for preservation (i.e. backup) or other purposes, but I do not. Even though Google is trying to hold to fair use practices through what it offers to its users, Google itself seems like it is likely to be breaking copyright by holding full copies of these works.
Now, should the publishers be making a big fuss? Well, maybe and maybe not. It doesn't appear that Google's effort will harm publishers, and is likely to help them. However, Google is not the only player out there who would be interested in massively copying monographs, and if the publishers let this pass, it might set a precedent which could come back to bite them. It isn't clear to me that the publishers are in the right, or that Google is entirely in the wrong, but if I were a publisher, I'd do the same thing, most likely.
I believe the other crux of the problem is that Google bulldozed its way forward with this project. Imagine if it was Microsoft instead of Google doing this; the slashdot comments would probably be entirely different. I admire Google moxie in pushing this issue, but I also am pained that they lacked the patience to work out some of the issues with the publishers before they pushed forward.
"What we have here, is a failure to communicate." - Cool Hand Luke
The examples don't mean anything. The four factor analysis is what is used to determine if a use is a fair use or not. It is possible to have news reporting, for example, that is not fair use, and cases along those lines are well known.
With regards to the four factors, you have to consider all of them, although fair use is not a simple matter of adding them up; they have differing weights depending on the circumstances involved.
Here, 1) the use is commercial and non-transformative, but does seem to have a significant research aspect to it. I'd call this one largely in favor of authors. 2) The works are both factual and creative, coming out solidly in favor of authors. 3) Google is copying the works in their entirety so as to have them in their database. That users might only see one small excerpt is irrelevant to the reproduction infringement; that's a distribution infringement. As everything is being copied, that's very bad. As for the distribution later, it is more likely that it will involve the important parts of the works than the unimportant parts. This too weighs heavily against Google. 4) It is utterly irrelevant whether a fair use has beneficial impacts on copyright holders; we're only interested in the harm involved. While it doesn't seem as though there would be a great deal of harm, alternatives that involve the copyright holders licensing these materials to Google are likely to be an issue that goes against this project, rather like Texaco.
All in all, I think this is dicey at best. It's certainly not a sure fair use.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
IANAL,l #howmuch was probably written by them and it says:
but http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.htm
From this I can see many places were Google is going to have a tough time are arguing that their use is fair. I suspect that they'll fall back to just doing books they get permission for. I expect that many publishers will flock to send them lists of works to add to their indexes.
While I accept that Google doesn't show much of the copyrighted work on one page, they are really publishing much of the work within the Google site. I can imagine a program being written to query google over and over again to reverse engineer a full work.
-- Want a more interesting quick read? VerbSap
I see the issue in the initial copying to their database, so why doesn't google buy the collections for $1, then sell them back when they're done. I buy used books and sell them back all the time.
Who knew you just had to be a big company for your theft of copyright to become 'legal'... Everyone else wanting to publish content has to make do with only publishing copyright expired works, works for which they've purchased the rights to or those they own directly by virtue of being the author themselves.
That was brilliant.
I just remember reading a post the other day from a reader berating another for his Soviet line, saying that it's only funny when it has some deeper irony. This was the best conceived Russia joke I've seen in a long while.
You appear to be mistaken. Google considers all books published since 1922 copyrighted. Excerpts, not whole works, of copyrighted works will appear with neither ads nor sales links. Copyright holders may opt in to ads and sales links and share revenue.
no, they're applying normal copyright protections, like only showing short passages, to all copyrighted works. If the author opts in, they display up to a few pages. If the author opts out, they completely remove it.
There's nothing wrong with what Google are proposing providing it's on the basis of a clearly defined legal contract with the holder of the reproduction rights in question.
In many, perhaps most cases the rights holder will not be the author but the publisher to whom the author has assigned publication and reproduction rights, in this case electronic reproduction rights, for the legal term of copyright (if it's a standard book deal).
Google are miles from establishing that their intended use of the material is "fair use" of any kind, an extremely tenuous concept that varies wildly depending on who you are and where you are.
Authors are surely right to worry that while today Google may have no underhand motive, this cannot be said of the future by which time the company may have a few million books under their belt and ideas of flowing lots of cash from them.
In the meantime, this leaves Google facing off with the book publishing industry (among others) at some stage, thousands and thousands of seedy, impecunious outfits desperate for a bit of grab grab grab. The actual authors will be lucky to see 10 per cent of any money by the time the publishers have got hold of it, siphoned off massive commissions and then sat on it for six months or a year. I'd rather be dipped in shit than have to negotiate my way through that lot and in time Google may well decide the same.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
While I accept that Google doesn't show much of the copyrighted work on one page, they are really publishing much of the work within the Google site. I can imagine a program being written to query google over and over again to reverse engineer a full work.
That method will not work according to Google in this article:
"Anybody who's clever enough can download the entire book," Hull said. Not true, said Jim Gerber, director of content partnerships for Google. "Martin Heidegger On The Way," for example, was submitted to Google by the publisher. Under those circumstances, people would only be allowed to see a maximum of 20 percent of the book, and a percentage of random pages are blocked completely.
And this link (PDF) in the blog response explains how Google's program is probably going to be allowed to proceed.
As for (3), if they own a copy of the work or have permission from the author/copyright holder, then it's moot. It is then analagous to asking a friend, who owns a work, where in said work they saw some specific term or phrase and having them point it out to you and then telling you where you can find a copy of the book for sale (or rent, in the case of a library). In the case of (4), what about bad book reviews? They (probably) cause harm to the marketability of the work.
Google are 100% wrong on this, they are stealing other people's work to make money for themselves. If authors or publishers want to use Google print they can, but it is completely wrong for Google to rip-off other people's work without permission.
Google should concentrate on the opt-in Google Print service rather than stealing other people's intellectual property.
This is what Google will show people. They will not let you infringe the copyright perhaps.
but
Hasn't Google already copied the entire thing for their own use?
They are not a library, they will not loan me the book, they are a corp.
How is that ok, but i can't copy it for my use. I want to have a copy handy in case a friend asks a question, i could look up the answer and only provide them that snippet so they don't have to get the whole book. Honest i won't read it all (unless thats what it takes to find the snippet i need...)
I do agree there should be a digital library of everything, but without a specific mandate from congress or something to allow it i don't see how it passes muster.
Greater good? Will there be no ads on sites related to this function?
After reading the complaint, what the Authors Guild is saying is that in order for Google to provide this service, Google has to have an electronic copy of that book available for everyone to use. They are also saying that they did not authorize any scanning of their books by Google, and the fact that Google is scanning a library's collection with that library's permission is irrelevant.
FWIW, I think that what Google is doing is fair use, but unfortunately it will lose in court or be forced to put up only public domain works.
So "fair use" isn't avoidable -- it's part of the entire package. If you want to use the restrictions of copyright on your works, you need to allow for fair use of your works as well. You can't pick and choose.
You need not own the books for it to make fair use of their contents. Direct quotation is a case to point. If I were required to own a copy of all books that I use as references in essays/assignments, then I simply could not afford to do them.
Imagine the costs of doing a PhD under those conditions!
A more interesting question is whether someone could write a bot that could run a whole bunch of queries and eventually piece together an entire work.
And if so, then I'd venture that Google needs to do something to assure the Authors Guild that they protect against that kind of abuse. Not that I think it would be all that difficult.
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
If the recording industries can impose fees, however small, for the ephemeral copies created in a server for a webcast, why not charge Google, a for-profit company, for the ephemeral copies it makes?
Firstly, their copies are probably stuck on a hard drive of some kind, and are most certainly not all that ephemeral.
Secondly, just because Google isn't likely to make any money directly from this project doesn't mean that it the copies of the book in their database aren't contributing to the bottom line. Good will, dragging scholars to your site, and general coolness are worth something.
Thirdly, many books have an express prohibition on electronic storage of any kind right on the inside front cover.
The Section 107 list probably means more to a lawyer than it does to me, but as I see it, Google strikes out on almost all of the points.
1. Google exists to make their share holders money, and any activities must be assumed to have something to do with that. Therefore the purpose of the use is profit.
2. I'm not sure what "the nature of the copyrighted work;" means, but it seems to me that a print heavy book has all it's value in the text.
The only real analog to sticking thumbnails of a picture heavy web site, an court approved fair use thing, would be to paraphrase or write a commentary on the text.
3. Google is going to store all of the book's text. What they are doing is no different thangoing to a college book store, photocopying the text and then only puttign small bits of the text in the term papers. The citations are appropriate, but making your own copy isn't. That doesn't mean that everybody doesn't do it, but that's a different problem.
4. Forcing an author into an opt-out scheme in order to preserve their chances at selling the rights to another search engine is crap. Opt out sucks.
It's probably obvious that I'm neither a published author or a law scholar, but that's how I see it. If I was an author I'd probably drive an electronic copy of all my works down to Google HQ myself, but I'd like it to be my choice.
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
First, permission from the copyright holder always means that there is no infringement, at least within the boundaries of the permission.
Second, your analogy doesn't hold up. We're talking about making a copy, not discussing facts about a copy, or pointing something out within a lawfully made copy. Your analogy doesn't involve a prima facie infringement to begin with.
Third, while book reviews may harm the value of the work, the issue is more along the lines of whether the use in question would serve as a substitute for the work. Here, if the copyright holders have a program where they license people to copy the work and put it in a database, Google's project of copying it themselves without license serves as a substitute.
Remember, creating the database is an infringement on its own, apart from letting people use it. So it needs to be defended against specifically.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
All four factors of "fair use" must be taken into consideration by the courts. See Rich. And because any alleged infringement can usually be distinguished from pre-existing case law, there is no such thing as an automatic fair use because one of the factors weighs heavily in favor of the alleged infringer. Copying 300 words can be an infringement while copying an entire work may not be an infringement. See Hollaar .
Until the courts decide whether a particular activity is a fair use, the alleged infringer is legally a kind of Schrodinger's Cat. Until the courts decide, Google is in a sense both a guilty infringer and an innocent fair user. Only legally observing Google's state by trial can definitively answer the question of whether Google's acts infringe on the rights of the plaintiff authors.
Nah. I didn't miss the point. I just addressed it in another post. I was addressing the idea that the functional equivalent of a screenshot would constitute piracy in the realm of software.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Perhaps what entrenched interests are really scared of is that GooglePrint will increase the actual and percieved value of public domain texts.
Then travesties like the Sonny-Bonno copyright act that steal from the public domain and keep books in the dark might encounter the broad resistance that they merit.
Do you use a public library in a modern city?
You cannot check out material without a library card.
Pssst. I think it was intended to be humorous. Obtaining a library card and avoiding fines would be trivial compared to the logistics of visiting every library....
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
"If you don't return a book, the library fines you. Eventually, they charge you for the book. I would imagine that at some point, a library takes some kind of collections action to recover their costs"
Yup, I have seen a Sheriff sent to someones door with a subpoena over overdue library books.. with the basic message of "return the books or pay what we deem their cost to replace"
ariven.com
"Why does Google (and other search engines) assume that they have the right to copy and reproduce the entire content of my site without seeking express permission?"
Why do people *in general* assume they can come to your web site and copy it to their browser cache without seeking express permission?
Why is that?
There is very fundamental reason.
A really really fundamental reason...
Its so basic that perhaps you're too "smart" to see it.
Its so so basic. Have you guessed it yet? Have you?
Think basic. Really basic. Why do people assume, in general, its okay to go to your web site and copy it over the internet to your hard disk to be viewed by you.
Why do people make the assumption that its okay without seeking permission.
Think think think.
I know you can do it.
I know you can.
Go ahead.
Really.
Go ahead.
Seriously, can you not figure this out?
If you can't figure it out, I suggest asking someone on the short bus tomorrow on the way to "school".
I wrote to administrators, and to each Regent at the University of Michigan, trying to get them to look at Section 108 of the Copyright Act, which specifies the limits of library copying as an instance of fair use. I believe that Section 108 prohibits U.Michigan from what they are allowing Google to do with their books.
I also wrote to the Authors Guild, expressing my frustration that U.Michigan ignored me. A copy of that letter is here.
Google is a weed growing in the copyright garden. I was thinking that Section 108 might be used to trim back the weed. The Authors Guild is wisely hoping to pull it out by the roots. If that doesn't work, maybe they can trim it back later.
I'm quite happy with The Author's Guild suit. It looks to me like they know what they're doing. Maybe five years down the road, when the Supremes establish that opt-in also applies to websites, then we'll be able to force robots.txt into an opt-in mode instead of the present opt-out mode. That will fragment the monopoly of the big search engines, and help to give the web back to the webmasters.
If Google could show snippets from books without first copying the entire book, and if they did this without any commercial interest or intent, then I think they might have a fair-use argument. But there are some hurdles before they can get to that argument.
Many Google acolytes like to point out that Google already grabs much of the web in its entirety, which is copyrighted by default. That's true. But that doesn't mean it's legal. All it means is that search engines started doing this before webmasters got organized into associations (they still aren't organized), and there was no one to challenge the engines.
Now if webmasters had been around as long as authors, and were organized to protect their interests, the engines would have never gotten this far with their illegal crawling for profit.
I'd like to know more about Google's library project. Does it infringe on any rights? They're only publishing documents that have outlived their copyright, aren't they?
moo.
Quoting an entire book is not fair use. Indeed. I'm going to use your work without permission in a commercial business for selling ads, until you tell me not to.
That isn't ethical.
For over a decade people on the net have complained about having to opt out rather than in. Whether it is spam, realplayer taking control of your
But now we're being told it is OK to have to opt out of someone using your work for commercial gain without permission, and it's OK to bundle a toolbar in with an unrelated VPN client.
Google are the new billionare bully on the block. Amazon are doing equally cool things with book searchs, only are doing them with the author's permission, why can't google be as equally professionally courteous?
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
"and as the excerpts are shown around the search results what does it take to read the entire book by crafting search queries? not much I'd think"
Well yes. And you can infringe copyrights on songs by building a random note generator and have it craft one million songs. Probably most of those random tunes would infringe somebody's copyright.
Yet, most people wouldn't not consider this a trick to get around paying for a CD.
Lets be serious for a second; books in electronic form are useful on in specific instances (search being one of them). However, you can't beat the utility and ease of use of a printed book. It runs almost forever, its not a big deal if you lose it, you can loan it to your friends, you can sell it when you're done.
I doubt that any popular author is going to be affected by this much, and if they are, it will probably be in a positive way.
The reason copyright holders fear this is because they're convinced their "I.P." is worth more than it really is. In other words, the large publishing houses think they can set up their own searches and charge money for it. Now, you and I know this isn't true and misses the point.
Then again, I think they're just trying to shake down google for a few bucks with a lawsuit, but I guess that's the American way these days. These authors would probably be better off writing another book and stop worrying about their books being indexed by Google.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I love your argument. I wonder how we can apply this argument to force the hands of the **AA into complying with public demand? Should we (the EFF or some other consumer advocate group) file some sort of class action demanding that THEY, the copyright protection-device people, provide a means to circumvent their protection measures so that our fair use rights are preserved? This should be a fair compromise since, under your argument, they should have their privileges REVOKED based on their prevention of the exercise of our rights under the law! (So either give us a means to circumvent protections or face having your copyright revoked would be the demand.)
Even the DMCA permits 'fair use' while denying the ability to create devices for circumvention so it seems only logical that the controllers of the protection/prevention devices should also provide access to the material.
There's lots of wriggle room in all of this... so I think the circumvention they provide should be 100% free as part of the demand.
Apparently the dictionary contains the contents of thousands of books, and they just rearrange a couple words. I think we should all get together and start a class action law suite against the dictionaries of the world for illegally redistributing our work. While we're at it, lets sue them for slander. They called me a "dumb fuck bitch who eats babies on friday mornings". They were a little tricky about saying it, again some of the words were mixed up in different places, but we all know what they meant.
Google... pfft, its dictionaries we need to worry about.
http://illhostit.com/ - Webhosting
Boy, if that's something Google is counting on, they are in trouble.
Arriba did not offer or hold the actual photograph. These were thumbnail images that linked to the owner's work.
Google will not be providing a link - they will be storing the entirety of the author's work, even in many cases when that work did not already appear in electronic form. They will be offering a service based on that person's intellectual property. When authors agree to have their included in similar databases, they receive payment for their work.
What Google is doing isn't a thumbnail; it is not fair use.
Happy _________ to you, ______ birthday to ___, Happy _______ _____ Google ______ Birthday to ____!
First off, while it is used as such in casual speech, 'copyright' is not a verb in the legal sense. You cannot copyright something. Copyright is a noun. It is something you own. Like physical objects, copyrights can be bought and sold.
Second, you do not have to do anything to own copyright on something you create. From the moment you create an original work, you own the copyright for that work. If you do not register your copyright, it might be harder to defend it, but you still own that copyright. So, publishers do not agree to provide copies for fair use -- they are forced to do so in much the same way that you are forced to pay taxes or not kill your neighbor.
On the last point, however, we have a common understanding. If it is ruled that Google's use is fair (which is the crux of the issue), then Google is under no obligation to allow for opt-outs. It would be done as a courtesy to keep the peace, but they wouldn't have to do it. On the other hand, it may help their case -- I am not quite sure how copyright works, but in the case of trademarks, you lose your trademark if you do not actively defend it. By providing a simple way to protect one's copyright, Google may be creating something of an escape clause for themselves.
Rhapsody in Numbers
"Quoting an entire book is not fair use."
No, they quote only a small snippet of it, falling under fair use. You've said as much yourself.
they *copy* the entire book in their cache...but then again, if that is illegal, then all websearchengines are infringing, and, in fact, all ISPs that use cache... for it will all contain copyrighted material which has been copies without the 'consent' of the copyrightholder.
Such a notion would be absurd. Not that that stopped some EU MEPs from trying, but luckily common sense prevailed, and it was not deemed illegal to cache copyrighted works.
I don't know how things are in the USa, but one could hope they show the same sense.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Actually, my understanding of what Google is claiming:
d f)
A. Under Fair Use, we have the right to display exerpts of ANY book, copyright or no.
If they dont copy the whole book, but rather, store the book as an index, they are on (from my little understanding of the law) fairly solid ground here. If they store the book, in a serially readable fasion, they might have some greater issues with the scanning. But if they never actually store the book in a serially readable manner, and merely make trees out of the book, they really dont need an authors permission at all.
IANAL but Google scanning and indexing of the books has some case law behind it, as being leagle, also. If you read the linked article (http://www.policybandwidth.com/doc/googleprint.p
you will see an argument that the storing of the books, totally, with the use of only providing exerpts of the book is also leagle.
So what google is saying is "look, I can do this one way or the other, with out without your permission. However, if you REALLY dont want to be included, then hey, no big deal, I will respect your wishes. I dont have to, but I like being polite."
So Google basically it doesnt have to be opt in or out. But Google is being polite in letting you opt out.
It is interesting to me that on slashdot people are so "Screw the man" when it comes to the RIAA defending itself from people copying copyrighted works. But they feel that a corporation should not be able to use principles of fair use. Consider the priciples, not who is invoking them.
Here's why it won't fall under fair use - the law looks at how much of the original work is copied: "amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole". Google is digitizing the whole book even though they are only displaying excerpts. It's going to be hard to argue that fair use allows them to copy the WHOLE book.
Actually you did miss it (and you amazingly even got modded insightful for it) or you wouldn't have posted that at all...
...so they can "advertise it for the software company" and claiming it's ok because they are only letting people have access to certain sections of it.
It seems you get tripped up when you start assigning motivations for what someone does....
Hmmm. Let's see.
Installing a copy that someone else gave them without paying (and without authorization) for it...
So far you'd be right.
By adding the remainder you muddied the waters. It was that portion of it that I found to be objectionable so I registerd my objection.
Your arguments aren't even internally consistent:
The ends does not justify the means, if Google wants to do this, they should purchase every book they intend to copy in it's entirety.
Technically, it's still illegal for them to copy the works in toto from a purchased copy.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
(and you amazingly even got modded insightful for it)
By George, I was modded Insightful for that. Gee, thanks for the heads up. What a day brightener! If I weren't sitting I'm sure there'd be a spring in my step now.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Yup, I have seen a Sheriff sent to someones door with a subpoena over overdue library books..
I think I saw that episode of COPS! Man, they chased the bookworm over the fences, guns drawn, "GET ON THE GROUND!" they kept yellin'. Intense stuff. Took the dude's library card on the spot and shredded it too.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
If you do not register your copyright, it might be harder to defend it, but you still own that copyright.
You are also more limited in the damages that you can sue for under copyright law. Use of an unregistered copyright can be pursued for (IIRC) actual damages only, whereas a registered copyright can be pursued for treble damages.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
But to do the thesis, he/she ( probably ) read the items, thus, in a sense, making a 100% copy of it.
So, is it illegal then? What if she/he has a "photographic memory" and can remember all of it verbatim? What if he/she doesnt?
emt 377 emt 4
Food for thought- if the RIAA does not allow fair use, through encryption and copy protection, does that mean it's no longer covered by copyright?
wouldn't that be a kick to the jimmy?
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
It's common in evaluating fair use defenses these days to apply the "four purposes" test:
(1) Effect on the market value of the work. Google can probably effectively argue that their use of the works does not adversely affect their sales. Only one sale was lost (selling the book to Google, since they borrowed and copied it rather than copying books they already owned copies of), and if anything, having the work indexed will increase the number of people exposed to the work's existence.
(2) Amount and substantiability of the work used. Google could get in trouble here, because even if they only reveal there copy a few words at a time, they copied the whole thing, and are redistributing the whole thing, if a few words at a time. There was nothing in the work that Google did not copy.
(3) Nature of the copyrighted work. The more creative a work, the smaller the range of uses considered fair use. A mere database is inelligible for copyright, and a reference work that conveys primarily factual information is easier to use fairly than a work of creative fiction. This could get hairy. One the one hand, many of the works Google proposes to copy are purely creative works. On the other, they are using them not for their creative content, but purely as data. If they can convince the court that because they have used the works as a database, and not as creative works, they have used them fairly, they have a chance. If the court sees the works principally as creative works though, this is a strike against Google.
(4) Nature of the use. Google is using the works commercially, even if they aren't getting paid. This is a strike against Google, though probably not an overriding one. However, to really win on this point, they need to make the case that putting all these books together in a big database is "transformative," and this is a hard point for them to make. While the books in the database can be used in a fashion they couldn't be used while not in the database, their appearance in that database is not transformative insofar as seeing the quote from the database adds little context to the work. It is not transformative in the sense that parody, criticism, scholarly research, etc., are transformative.
In my opinion, Google has a good fair use defense only if they can convince the court to distinguish the content of the works as creative works from the content as data, and then say they copied only the data, without infringing the creative work. It is not at all certain to me that the court would agree with such an interpretation of the law. If this makes it to trial, it is my opinion that Google faces an uphill battle.
I think you are missing the joke here, but you are right.
A guy I work with has otherwise spottless credit, but he was almost turned down for an apartment based on his credit report. He got a copy of his credit report and it turned out he had checked out a bunch of books from the city library during his sophmore year of school and never returned them. The library had filed with a collection agency to recover the lost $300 some dollars worth of property (and possibly fines, I don't remember), it totally screwed his credit score.
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
"Corporate America of course won't be happy until you pay a per-word usage fee for reading a library book."
As opposed to the good ole days, when books arrived in libraries for free?
Tax-dollar road map:
citizens' pockets --> gov't coffers --> local library budgets --> book publishers [aka "Corporate America"] --> authors
There's a bit of skimming at each step, of course, but please don't try to make it sound like we aren't already paying to read library books.
Indexing these texts, and allowing the public to search these works, undoubtedly will create more interest in the books, and will consequently benefit the authors.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.
(I would suggest that indexing, is a form of research, the law also considers the following)
In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (note the law does not say it must be non-commercial)
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (they are books)
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (showing less than a page out of a book)
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
(google
scans for free,
indexes for free,
links to the publishers website for free,
pays commisions to the rights holder for clicks on competitor's ads for free,
google makes many books that would otherwise not be noticed findable so they are increasing the market, and all the free services provided by google definately increase the value significantly)
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
Google stated mission is to make a "significant portion of the world's knowlege available to a signicant portion of the world's population"
and they seem to be doing this with religious zeal while presenting everybody a win-win situation.
If Google is screwing the copyright owners by doing all this, I wish they would screw me too!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Mod this up! This is exactly the point. Google is at most an accessory, and is acting in good faith on behalf of the libraries.
If someone gives you data and you index it online, and then it turns out that the act of giving you the data was illegal, who's broken the law? Hint: not you.
What Google are doing is not research. The fact that you may be able to use Google's service for research is irrelevant becuase that's not why the service exists. If this was just to test out some new algorithm then perhaps it could be considered research. Google is a for-profit corporation and they intend to use the copyright works to make money by drawing people to their site and serving them ads. They aren't doing it to further the sum of human knowledge, they are doing it to get rich.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Did you RTFA? Can you find a way of highlighting certain text within a scan without doing OCR?
Of course they OCR the scans. They're not being "low-tech", they're providing images of the books, typesetting, images et. al. An OCR scan might be more useful to google's users, but they're setting out to provide snippets (or entire pages) of actual books. How useful is an OCR scan of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" without the pictures?!
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
this bunch of around 8000 authors need to be sent a message
staff@authorsguild.org
is the contact email address
Print.google.com is important for all of us because it means access to
the worlds published printed knowledge of everything (except micky mouse
of course).
Think of how valuble this could be for people researching into anything
the ability to call up the whole of mankinds published knowledge or at
least extracts from documents on any subject all the research papers.
this site could be the most important ever!
And an organisation of around 8000 people thinks they should stop google
maybe when they see thier relatives ill dying and suffering they should
remember their contribution to the pain and misery in this world.
fuckem boycott thier works refuse to acknowledge they published anything.
Let them know you are not going to buy read or acknowledge their
existance because they have contributed the smallest drop of knowledge
to humanity so I don't think we will miss them.
they must feel the negative effects of thier actions holding the worlds
knowledge hostage is a crime against humanity and this is what they are attempting.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Google are copying the books without the copyright owner's permission, AFAICT from the information provided. That is breach of copyright.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
No, that is NOT what Google is doing. From the referenced link:
You don't have to be a lawyer to understand that this certainly falls within Fair Use under U.S. copyright law.
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
I may be rather anti-litigious, but in this situation, I think that filing a bug report isn't really the answer. I'm quite sure that legal counsel would confirm that the correct action would be to sue.
Sort of like copying a work in RAM, and/or across network devices is copying?
No, like going to a library, scanning an entire book, taking the scan back to the office, OCR'ing it all, and storing it all in a publically-accessible database is copying. Get the difference?
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
Well, if Google's use of the material falls under fair-use provisions, then they are, in fact, not copying them without the copyright owner's permission. The owner already gave permission for fair-use when the work was copyrighted. And that is the crux of this matter: is Google exercising fair-use rights. I think they are, I hope they are (because this would be a way-cool service that will probably make publishers a ton of money) but given the way this society works it will most likely end up being up to the courts to figure it out.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
You don't need an owner's permission for fair use. That's the whole point of fair use. That it's "fair to use the works without the copyright holder's permission."
Kinda like that episode of "Seinfeld," huh?
Without search engines, the web would not be worth very much to the average person. Lets not forget that the W3C standards say opt-out and that is widely understood by anyone setting up a website. If you don't want to be indexed, its trivial to opt-out.
As to the Google book search tool, this is a terrific use of technology for the average person, its a terrific for authors because it gets people looking at their books, its good for bookstores because they sell more books, its good for google because they make money.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
What Google are doing is not research. The fact that you may be able to use Google's service for research is irrelevant becuase that's not why the service exists.
Google is indeed doing research on behalf of its users (the people who enter the search criteria) as surely as a University professor may indeed be doing research on behalf of a government organization or company that provides the criteria for grant that funds the research. The reason for the University professor's existence, while arguably an interesting philosophical question, has no bearing upon whether we call his work for hire, such as work funded by grants,"research".
They aren't doing it to further the sum of human knowledge, they are doing it to get rich.
This does not, in any way, conflict with the copyright laws of the United States of America. It is of absolutely no consequence to the law whether someone's intented result of doing research that makes fair use of a copyrighted work is "to further the sum of human knowledge" or to be the wealthiest fool in North America.
That's almost too sig-alicious to pass up. :P
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
17 USC, Section 107:
1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (my emphasis)
I think I was wrong earlier to suggest that Google might be able to argue that provision if their research was pure research. I doubt you could argue anything Google does is 'for nonprofit educational purposes'.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Here is the question I cannot get around:
It would appear that they cannot. However, nowadays most copyright infingement claims have to do with distribution and not copying. On the Internet, this is especially true since copies are required for transmission and display. Every website you view, for instance, is copied by several ISPs as it gets to you. Also, the RIAA does not seem to sue people for having songs on their hard drive. They tend to sue people for allowing other people to access those songs on their hard drives.
Given all that, I think the real question is:
If the answer is yes, Google will lose. If the answer is no, everybody will win.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
I think you fail to grasp that if your position were upheld the Web would become relatively useless. Without Google or other search engines to give us some sign posts to various treasure troves we would be searching a rather large universe of sites and pages without any hint of a map. However biased Google (or for that matter any other web search engine you may wish to name) may be, without them we poor rovers of the web would never find anything except by accident. Site names are often non-explanatory or confusing, indexes may not be updated properly, links break, etc. Without search engines we're stumbling around in a luggage and filing cabinet filled basement without lights and seeing by a single candle.
Coincidently this is about the same situation as trying to find an obscure text in a major library without a central index or card catalog to guide you. A situation that Google is attempting to cure. Now I have no idea what has the Authors Guild's knickers in a twist, but apparently they must all be famous and well known writers whose works are at the front of the shelves. Those writers whose publishers did not, sadly, have enormous budgets to blow on lurid graphic covers or whose works appeal only to a limited audience would be happy to have any publicity they can get. Space on bookshelves at your local store is limited, finding a book through Amazon applies only to books in print and readership or concern for out of print or older volumes at libraries is decreasing. A search service that brings any attention to older works or provides a search function to obscure or less popular works seems to me to be one way to give the print medium a massive shot in the arm.
Having friends who are lesser known writers I can tell you that they are, to a one, solidly behind ANYTHING that will give them greater exposure to the world at large. Carried to its limits the Google project will do that. Speaking as a former collage student myself I know I would have welcomed with open arms anything that would have allowed me to obtain a greater range of written opinions on any topic that I had a research paper due on. Speaking as an avid reader who enjoys finding rare classics to this day, a search engine that might suggest to me some missing tome that I might find would assist me greatly to locate new gems for me to read.
What's not to like!
Google has allowed me to find all kinds of cool web sites to learn from (the website for the newspaper for the Antarctic research stations for example) that I would never have found on my own. I simply type in a topic and even the most obscure sites pop up. If an oddball notion seizes me I can find a dozen references on it in a moment, if my children need information on any school subject simply type it in and it's at your fingers. I know of few web designers that wouldn't want a Google listing, Far from hurting web site owners Google has been a godsend! How else would, for example, a small beekeepers site in Montana be able to advertise it's products to a wider audience, or a metal craftsman in Maine be able to give notice of his wares? Leave it to the webmasters? What elitist poppycock!
Google (and its competitors and predecessors and followers) has been the biggest boon to the web in its creation. If it can do the same for books and the written word then we will finally have achieved what Dr. Vannevar Bush intended hypertext to be (a name I was able to locate quickly and easily, by the by, by typing "History of Hypertext" into Google).
Correct, so the question that needs to be answered is whether what they're doing falls under fair use or not. I tend to feel that Google is crossing the line here, even though it would be an undeniably cool service and probably result in the publishers making more money.
The way I read copyright law, I think even a web spider falls outside the realm of fair use - especially if the search engine is keeping a verbatim copy of the page which is served on demand. I think if somebody actually sued and the judges were completely impartial, Google would lose. The ease and cost-effectiveness of being able to remove something from Google's index is what's saving them from such a doomsday lawsuit.
I am, of course, not a lawyer, but I know a bit about copyright law.
Unfortunately, I replied to a previous post before getting to yours, so I will have to repeat myself somewhat. On the other hand, since you are a lawyer, it will be easier to summarise my point as you are already familiar with the issues involved.
First, let me say that although I agree with your legal assessment, I disagree with your moral assessment. Whether or not Google is going to profit by its actions is irrelevant. The fact that they are going to digitize so many books should be applauded. What they have already done would take publicly funded programs decades or centuries (if it were to happen at all). If you do not believe me, just take a look at Project Gutenberg. It took them from 1970 to 2001 or 2002 to scan a mere 10,000 books. The public library systems of the world have scanned zero or close to zero (considering the number of works in the public domain, you should be asking yourself if the public libraries are doing their job at all). Google is going to manage millions in a few years. This is a good thing, whether or not you like Google personally.
Now, on to the legal issues. Technically, Google is in massive violation of copyright. Of that, there can be no question. The question is the relevancy and enforcability of those provisions in copyright law.
Technically, by the fact that you are viewing this comment, you are violating my copyrights. I have written this comment. It is stored in a fixed and tangible form. You have copied it into your computer's memory (Mai v. Peak) to view it. I have not given you written permission to view it (which, legally, is the only kind of permission that matters). In the mean time, you have also created infringers of all of the intermediary ISPs between yourself and Slashdot, so you are also liable for contributory infringement. I could sue you and win.
Why does this not happen every day? It does not happen because society has already accepted that these forms of copying are acceptable. Call them fair use. Call them your right to access the materials. Call these forms of copying whatever you want. No matter how you look at it, the Internet itself is responsible for massive (technical) copyright infringement. In fact, if copyight were enforced as the lawmakers wrote it, you could not even use the web without calling every admin and asking for a written contract before you accessed that given site.
So, the question, as I just put it is:
As I pointed out in my earlier post, the RIAA, the current, undisputed king of copyright lawsuits does not even sue for copying. They sue for distribution. If they really wanted to, they could sue anybody with MP3s of any music over which their sponsors had rights. In fact, they could even sue anybody using a CD player because the player has to load the data into memory and convert it into an analog signal before a given person can listen to it. From the standpoint of copyright law, then, it is impossible to even listen to music without violating copyright.
In such an age, how can Google be taken to task for violating copyright in the same way that everyone does?
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
Then the nature of the "copy" is important?
emt 377 emt 4
OK, what is the guild complaining about ?
Try the following experiment.
Go to Google Print, search for "Image Processing Handbook", The first item is the J.C. Russ book. Click on it. This is a recent, copyrighted book.
Now search for "noise", go to page 19. You can read the book from page 17 to 21. Notice the pretty pictures.
Now look for "coarsening", a rarish word found on page 21. Select page 21, and Lo and behold you can now also read page 22 and 23. Repeat ad nauseam.
In most book a few pages are permanently blotted out, but by and large you can easily read *most* of the book.
Try the same trick with any book in Google Print, it works.
THIS goes beyond fair use. The guild has a point. They will win that case, unless Google scale back their offering dramatically, to the point where is has no value beyond what Amazon (say) offers now.
Do you understand now? Thanks.
I'm a webmaster and most of my traffic comes through google and other search engines. It's the same for 90% of websites.
Wow. It used to be other way around. I'm calling the Greenpeace to ask Google to donate the technology for turning books into trees to them. Then all we have to do is send all junk literature to Amazonas, and presto -- rain forests saved! I'm eagerly awaiting worldpeace.google.com shortly after this one.
Sig erased via substitution of an identical one.
Technically speaking, Google is not copying the books, it is creating an encoding which allows the contents of the books to be retrieved.
Want some direct proof? Here is a simple example:
f
http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/1103/aaa9lo.gi
The explanation is simple. The publisher of this book has opted in to the program to allow some pages of the book to be shown, similarly to the way that pages of the same book can be downloaded from Amazon.
I was not responding to Google's case, only his statement that you could not copy portions of a friend's book for fair use reasons. His logic was that you could own and copy a book, or borrow a book and not make copies (again, for fair use reasons, which Google's may or may not be). I simply stated that if you were making copies for fair use reasons, it doesn't matter if it is your book or someone else's. Again, I don't think this has any bearing on Google's case.
Rhapsody in Numbers
I think google's implementation of this project very clearly falls under scholarship and/or research purposes.
Wouldn't it be the person actually doing the research who is granted permissions under the provisions of fair use? This is required for them to use excerpts of copyright works in presenting the results of their research.
Google is not scanning books for research. They are not presenting results derived from research. They are doing it to provide a tool to those are, for commercial gain.
Wait, they do that here in the US, too.If that's the case, then I will be able to reconstruct the entire book on my machine by using a series of searches.
I predict that programs to do this automatically will begin to appear shortly after Google goes public with its Library Project.
P.S. It's spelled "legal".
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Nowhere did I say I was a lawyer. I simply pointed out the obvious.
Technically, Google is in massive violation of copyright.
You said you are not a lawyer, so...
Technically, by the fact that you are viewing this comment, you are violating my copyrights. I have written this comment. It is stored in a fixed and tangible form. You have copied it into your computer's memory (Mai v. Peak) to view it. I have not given you written permission to view it (which, legally, is the only kind of permission that matters).
IANAL either, but I (and my lawyer girlfriend) disagree with this entirely. You are responding in a public forum. It's an 'open letter' of sorts, and as such I, or anyone else, is allowed to view, copy or respond to it. Also, and I'm not sure what Slashdot's policy on their posts is, or what we agreed to when we registered, but it may be that in posting on this forum, you are granting Slashdot the copyright on your material. One could also think of your post as a simple letter to me, where again, I have every right to copy, view and respond to it.
I do think you raise an interesting point with regards to the cached copies of copyrighted material being stored on private computers, web caches and search engines everywhere. In these cases, the nature of the technolgy of distribution does raise and interesting question with regards to the nature and meaning of 'copying'. However, I don't see how that affects anyone's fair use rights as defined under the law. They appear to be separate to me.
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack