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Second Google Suit Over Print Library Project
linumax writes "The Association of American Publishers, an organization of book publishers including Pearson Plc's Penguin unit and McGraw-Hill sued Google over its plan to create a digital Web library of printed books. The Association of American Publishers sued Wednesday after talks broke down with Google over copyright issues raised by the Google Print Library Project. Publishers say Google will infringe copyrights unless it gets advance permission for the scanning. The suit is the second by the publishing industry against Google's library plans and underscores the worries sparked by Google's expansion beyond Web search." From the article: "Google, which is working with five of the world's great libraries (Stanford, Harvard and Michigan university libraries, the New York Public Library and the Bodleian library in Oxford) to digitise their collections, stopped scanning copyrighted books in August after protests from publishers. However, it intends to resume its work next month."
One of the bigges online collections of data will be violating copywrights by copying information provided by libraries...
Guess we need to outlaw coppiers in libraries...
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
This is a monumental waste of money.
I once almost collided with Pat Schroeder crossing the street in downtown Denver. Maybe I should have (we were both on foot, btw).
I'm surprised Pat Schroeder is involved with or leading the charge in attempts to throttle Google. She offers tepid reasoning (probably not enough prep time spent with handlers) (from the article) :
She's right! This does go far beyond creating a digital version of a card catalog! Google's super-sized revved up digital card catalog qualifies as a godsend to the publishing industry.
The ability to do Google indexed book searches will spur reading, and sales, not muffle it. How many slashdot readers have been thankful for the Amazon.com feature of letting you peek inside their books? Many times this has been the feature giving me the final nudge to buy (though there also have been times where that nudged me the other direction).
When people start "discovering" books with Google's book searches, the very worst thing that would happen would be that people would be briefly exposed to books they otherwise might not have. But for "searchers" who find an interesting book, they won't be ripping the publishers off by printing (stealing) or downloading (stealing) these books, since Google isn't offering that as an option.
And assuming for the moment some figure out how to download a copy, they're left with a book on their computer... not convenient to read (e-books, still on respirator), and way too expensive to print (and aesthetically "not a book").
So, the most likely result would be a library visit, or purchase.
Come on Pat!, think again.
I guess we'll all have to memorize our favorite book.
Books are a bit like software, and the try before you buy model works well. I have a hard time imagining most people deciding to read the entirety of a long book on their computer, even if it's available for free. I can imagine quite a few people looking at a new book online and using that as the basis for choosing to buy the book if they're going to read it though.
Fortunately, at least a few companies display a bit of understanding. The people initiating these lawsuits should read the introduction Here, and then check Baen's profits, and note that they're still in business and doing reasonably well, thank you very much.
Of course, everybody else should go there simply to check out some books for free, and (perhaps) to support Baen Books for being decent people and doing good things.
--
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
These associations of book publishers should be careful with what they do, or they could quickly find themselves in the position of the RIAA and MPAA amongst far more people than just geeks. I'd wager every single person I know has been to our city's library system at least once in their lifetime. (Columbus, OH) And I'd also be willing to bet that should the courts be stupid enough to allow this to spill over eventually to the library's that there would be a lot of people pissed that they might cripple our city's library system which happens to be the best one in the nation because there are about 30+ library's "linked together" across the city. In other words, I can go to my local library building (or even online: http://www.cml.lib.oh.us/) and reserve just about any DVD, CD, book, or magazine that I could ever want. It's like a physical version of Kazaa, eDonkey, or any other P2P system, except all the content IS stored on the central "server". (The library drives trucks of books around all over the city, transporting them from one location to another based on patron requests)
So, how is Google any different, except that it's potentially more massive, EVEN faster than the library system I'm used to, and available to even more people?? It's just an extension of the concept that's been around in my city in "snail-mail" form for quite a while now. Keep it up and they're liable to piss off a vast majority of the population of the US if the laws about copyrights keep getting extended further and further away from the original intent of copyright law.
No, this isn't my most well-though-out post ever, but I wanted to highlight this facet of the debate over Google's LIbrary Project.
There is gutenberg project which is slowly converting Public domain text into the digital platform but doing it w/o violating the copyrights. Google, being the 800 pound gorilla of the digital space, wants to say, "I do whatever I want and you can not do anything about it" which, in my opinion is not right.
Some people before my post said, pc's are not getting any slower and scanners any weaker and this is supposed to happen sooner or later. Well, I beg to differ. One person scanning his own, paid, copyrighted book/document and putting it on P2P is not right to start with, but after all, looking at the percentile of the internet users sucking up everything in their sight are not the people to worry about. Think about the mega-downloaders of the pirated music and movies and books. How many of those have really sat down and watch/listen/read all they downloaded. Not even close to anything comparable to what may happen if google start to offer them. There is not enough hours in a day to both be on the computer and suck up all the media content.
Whereas, if google wanted to offer whatever is in libraries, quite hefty portion of which is still protected by the copyright monstrous laws (which is a subject of aniother discussion but regardless how bad they are, they stand on a legal ground). And do you think if people can look up in google what they are looking for and get their daily fix of reference/literature using the free resources, they still are going to walk to the Borders or B&N and buy the print media. I sure would not, for nothing else than eliminating clutter in my home.
Google, the darling of internet, doing it now, does not make it right. I am against any mega conglomerate like RIAA/MPAA and alikes but this is not the way to deal with those morons. Two wrongs still does not make one right in my books {pun intented}
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
It almost sounds like the publishing industry is getting it's legal advice from the RIAA.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Same thing, dood...
I work with one of those academic library institutions.
This is more like an effort by the libraries, and Google is basically under contract to do the heavy lifting of scanning and technology, because they're good at such grand data projects. Traditional libraries simply aren't scaled and don't have the budgets to do it all by themselves. There's major cost savings in consolidation and expense-sharing. Why scan 7 times when you can scan once?
It seems like the publishers are really aiming for a for-fee privatized electronic library system, cutting out traditional non-profit libraries.
You're kidding, right? Have you never heard of the amazing work done by Project Gutenberg? They have something like 16,000 books and counting. All digital and all in the public domain. In many ways, it's the F/OSS equivalent of Google's project.
From their site:
Sorry, I'm a writer. That makes you raw material.
We are mere months (maybe a year) away from the ability to completely scan any book and convert it accurately to text based PDF in under an hour. It will likely be F/OSS software that does it, released ostensibly to save old books in the public domain.
When this happens, books will end up on P2P just like movies, music, porn, and images. Just as P2P helps people find interesting musicians and performers, it will help people find interesting writers and authors.
As an author, I couldn't agree more.
Most people want to curl up with a good book and read in comfort, lying in bed, on their couch, in their recliner (cracking fire and comfortable cup of tea/coffee/hot chocolate optional). A few folks don't mind sitting in front of a computer to read, but the rest of us like good old fashioned, physical books in our hands, and what Google is doing is not only NOT a threat to the sale of traditional bound books, it is a boon.
What it isn't a boon for is old guard publishers having a stranglehold on exposure anymore, meaning that self-published, POD, and other less traditional forms of publishing gain more leverage in attracting interested eyes, without having to somehow get ahold of that coveted shelf space in a brick-and-mortor store.
Not that I don't covet that for my novel (I do), but the more accessible the information is to those looking for it, the more people will buy the physical version of the book.
The AAR has its head up its ass, and win-or-lose on this particular lawsuit, they and their constituents are going to lose bigtime if they don't update their mentality to fit with the technological reality of today, and begin exploiting the opportunities it offers.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The substance of what you said has an implied presumption that when something is coppied, distributed, or even sold without the creators permission, then the creator/publishor is in some way violated. While I understand that's the theory, and we have all been spoonfeed that that is an "intellectual property" right, the reality is quite different.
While protected rights, naturally lead to incentives - protected incentives do not naturally lead to rights. Perhaps somebody feels violated when you freely copy, then again perhaps plantation masters feel violated if you steal, oops I mean free, slaves from the plantation. That is what I mean. Property and incentive are not an ends in themselves, to be just they need to derive from the real world - like the fact that not everybody can use the same resources at the same time, but with information they can!
Copyrights are particualrly evil because they have the effect of stealing away our culture and giving it to hollywood. They also have an effect, that to secure them, you need to microregulate the internet and everybody that uses it. They have an effect that leads to anti-trust behavior in large software companies, and tend to make the information itself more valuable then the people who provide the services. The cost of having them in the information age is simply too high and they can not survive the information age any more than micro-controll of the labor market (slavery) could survive the industrial revolution.
Google should have worked with the publishers and copyright owners of the books rather than a public library to do this job? I mean making all books in world online is not a monstrous task just because of the efforts involved in scanning, but for managing the relationship with all the stake holders. Think of it - anyone with a lot of cash and copy monkies can scan these books, but it needs lot more skills to get all the relationships right. Google took a short-cut by bypassing the people who put years of their life creating the books, and no wonder these people are unhappy. This particular lawsuit is from major publishers of the likes of Mc Graw Hill - there is abosolutely no way Google can proceed with this project without their blessings.
Considering that writers are the least paid of all professions, this would pretty much put an end to writing professionally if what you say comes to pass. Remember that few authors make more than 20 grand a year, and that includes the majority of best selling authors as well.
Authors that make less than $20k/year simply don't write good books. I can't see many people jumping at the chance to read a bad book just because they can get it for free.
This is why publishers are against google, as well as all the authors. They already make only pennies an hour when you figure out the time it takes to write a book versus the money paid. To have to give everything away for free? That would drive the entire publishing business under.
I doubt it would have any measurable effect on the publishing business. For one, the type of people who frequent the p2p networks generally aren't the type to sit down and read a novel. For two, who wants to read a book on their computer screen or printed out on a stack of copy paper? Wow e-books are really popular aren't they? I'll pay $5.95 for a paperback, or not read the book at all, before reading it on my computer for free. Hell you'd have to pay me to read a book on my computer, and I doubt I'm the exception.
There is gutenberg project which is slowly converting Public domain text into the digital platform but doing it w/o violating the copyrights.
What happens to PG once all notable English-language works first published on or before December 1922 have been scanned and digitally republished?
He deprived people of exactly as much as he would have deprived them if he had gone to the local library and checked the book out. In both cases, full content would be consumed for the price of only the one original. So . . . Don't get all high and mighty (or in this case, trolly - but a point was there to be made in response).
You're forgetting that if the author isn't protected from theft, he/she will be less inclined to produce the culture that's being "stolen." Creation takes work and that work needs to be compensated otherwise it'll cease. Slavery arises when a man is required to work for nothing which from the jist of your post, is exactly what you think creators should be paid. After all, it costs them nothing to duplicate their work so why pay them?
It's not the protection from theft that's evil, it's the theft itself that's evil.
I think the point is not books being available or not, but rather the player/ viewer.
For music, you have your MP3 player or burn a CD -- the user experience is pretty much the same as for other music media. For movies, you can make a VCD or watch it on the computer itself, the user experience is not as good as a regular cable or satt show or DVD, but somewhat comparable. For books, though, maybe some people could use a PDA, but it's just not a comparable experience to a real book that you can carry anywhere, is easy on your eyes, doesn't need recharging, etc.
Once there is a really good platform for reading e-books: cheap, good battery life, easy to use, great screen etc; then book piracy may be a problem.
/* TAANSTAFL */
I'm afraid some people are ignorant of the Fair Use limitations on copyright. Berowell must be, if he thinks that the resolution of Google's Fair Use defense is clear.
Schroeder, on the other hand, knows perfectly well that Google's Fair Use argument is plausible. It won't necessarily win in court, but it is no way a clear loser. Schroeder does what all big publishers do: pretend that Fair Use doesn't exist, and hope that they will get people to abandon their Fair Use rights.
Free scan, free search, free marketing. Of course the book publishers would be against it. It might mess up their carefully constructed marketing plans by creating a demand they were previously unaware of
How do teenagers know which kids in highschool are the cool kids? Are the teachers standing out in the hallways pointing them out? No ... the community has built its own methods (cliques, etc) for deciding who is popular and making them known.
We are an adaptive people. We do not require corporations to "tell us" what is good and what isn't. In fact, lacking that infrastructure, I think we're more likely to get the legitimately good stuff to the top and weed out the junk.
Creating a digital library is different than a public library. In a public library, the library pays for the books and the authors earn money over the purchases, while in Google's digital library people are going to read the books without paying and so the authors dont earn from it. I agree that some of the books are overpriced but making digital copies is not an answer. Google is doing EVIL here and i think they should come up with a mutual solution with the publishers and the authors. Digital library is a very good idea but should not be unfair to anyone.