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The Point of Google Print
vinohradska writes "Eric Schmidt has written a good article called the The point of Google Print. It clearly lays out the argument against the current lawsuit: 'Even those critics who understand that copyright law is not absolute argue that making a full copy of a given work, even just to index it, can never constitute fair use. If this were so, you wouldn't be able to record a TV show to watch it later or use a search engine that indexes billions of Web pages.'"
Imagine sitting at your computer and, in less than a second, searching the full text of every book ever written . . . Imagine one giant electronic card catalog that makes all the world's books discoverable with just a few keystrokes by anyone, anywhere, anytime.
I've added the emphasis to show why there is a problem for many people with this. You can't advertise it as a full text search of every book every written while justifying it by claiming it's just a card catalog. Last time I stopped in at the local library, the card catalog indexed a brief descriptive blurb, publishing date, printing, editor, publisher, author, page count and title. It did not contain the contents of said book.
I think that the publishers are protesting this, for the same reason the RIAA, and the MPAA are trying to stifle ways that make it easier to sell products. The reason is that they're all distribution channels, but in the age of the internet, there are easier, more cost-effective methods of distribution (ie, direct downloads, Amazon.com, etc.). More so than that, they are MARKETING MACHINES - the reason Author X, or Band Y wants to sign with Publisher Z, is that Publisher Z can front a million dollars pushing product into people's faces, and thus drum up large sales volumes... but only on NEW product.
You notice that many of the new technologies (iTunes, eBooks, etc.) really mostly benefit older back-list titles. This is because there is no marketing, production, or distribution budget for these things. There are few, if no jobs in promoting these backlist titles, whereas there is a lot of money in promoting the new stuff.
Things like Google Print will help promote sales of older items, and I think the fear is among the publishers, is that their ability to push new content will be drowned out, and they'll all lose their jobs. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of kickbacks, marketing contracts, air time, cushy offices, the whole idea of exclusivity - all down the toilet, because people only have so much time. If they can find what they're looking for without having the consumer Big Brother tell them what they want, then what use are these marketing organizations, especially when most of the new product they peddle is crap to begin with?
I don't see the business case against opposing google print. Could the net effect be anything else but higher sales due to the amount of people who will find just the right book when searching through google?
The business case is simple:
"It's my football."
I've talked to a publisher about something similar, and his attitude was "I don't care if it will make me more money - if I want it indexed, I will do it myself, so I can charge for it. I don't want anyone but me making money by providing a service for my products, even if it's a service I can't or won't provide myself."
They don't care about more money, all they care about is control.
Trust me, knowing that a book exists is already very helpful, even if you can't obtain it immediately. If a book is in print, then you can buy it. If it's in the public domain you can access it immediately. If it is out of print, but not in the public domain, then you may still be able to buy it used. Even if you can't, your local public library can obtain just about any book that's been published for you. If it is something extremely rare, but you really need it, then it is still useful, because you can fly over, or contact the library by phone and explain your circumstances, or find someone with access to the library who can obtain the necessary information.
If you don't know whether the books exists, you can do neither of those.
Tim O'Reilly made an excellent point in support of Google Print when he
pointed out that the biggest threat to authors is not piracy, but obscurity.