Slashdot Mirror
Google To Resume Scanning Books
SenseOfHumor writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google will resume scanning copyrighted books from Stanford and Univ of Michigan libraries. Let the battle resume!" From the article: "It isn't known just what percentage of library holdings fall into the category of being in copyright but out of print. About 18% of the books held by the libraries working with Google were printed prior to 1923 and are therefore in the public domain, according to an analysis by the Online Computer Library Center, a Dublin, Ohio, nonprofit library cooperative. An unknown percentage of the rest still are protected by copyright, depending on whether it was renewed. Google's resumption of its scanning of copyrighted works comes amid heated debate in the library community over participation in the program."
Is there some machine they have that separates all the pages and scans each one?
How do they verify that the items being scanned are being scanned properly?
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
I'm not usually one to support the knee-jerk slashweenie response, that all intellectual property is theft, but I do object to commercial enterprises refusing to sell me something and insisting that I can't copy it.
It might be their intellectual property but it's my culture, dammit. If they won't keep it in print and sell me a copy, which I'm willing to pay for, then they should keep their mouths shut when I go and find one for myself.
Anybody got a DVD of Dance of the Vampires they can let me copy then?
until this is available! I can't count the number of times that I have been flipping thru a book and wished I could use the search function, only to realize that it doesn't work in meatspace. Searching is up to me, using old fashioned tools, like the table of contents or the index!
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
Would Google be allowed to store scanned copies of books even if the authors opt out? Someday, those print copies are going to be destroyed or deteriorate to the point of uselessness, which means that Google could be archiving works that might otherwise be lost forever.
I still don't get the uproar over the scanning, because it's not like the entire book is made available for free. The search is so crippled that it makes me think the people who are upset have never used it before.
Goo goo g'joob.
A lot of folks are going mental about the "copyright implictions" of google books, and I'm just laughing. On my bookshelf is a first-edition colleciton of George Bernard Shaw plays, printed in the UK in 1911. There's a legend on the inside cover that is a reference to the U.S.'s lack of copyright laws at the time: (paraphrasing from memory:)
FTA: "I feel that this is a potential disaster on several levels," said Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association and university librarian at California State University, Fresno. "They are reducing scholarly texts to paragraphs. The point of a scholarly text is they are written to be read sequentially from beginning to end, making an argument and engaging you in dialogue."
The sad thing is, scholarly texts are so abundant nowadays that it's neigh impossible to keep oneself current with all the new things published. Already there are magazines that only (or mostly) contain abstracts or reviews of new dissertations and articles. I fail to see how Google Print is a greater disaster than this. If anything, it'll only improve the situation.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Seriously, though, I feel like I'm missing something here. What is it?
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
As a recognition of this debt to society, intellectual property that is not in the public domain should be taxed. Just as our other physical property is taxed, why not intellectual property?
And the taxes can be used to invest in new science, technology, and the arts.
This has the added benefit of also moving a bunch of stuff into the public domain.
If the taxes aren't paid within two years, then the item moves into the public domain. If you aren't sure on the status of an item, see if it has had IP taxes paid in the last two years. If not, then it's free!
Abstinence is a government conspiracy. www.SafeSexZone.co
There are actually books that do not have an index. And boy is it a pain in the ass! I can understand why. From what I've heard from authors, indexing a book is the most boring and tedious thing to do.
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
1.Connect to google.
2.Download a rare book only found in a handfull of libraries.
3.Go read it....
In 75 years, give or take, the gap will close for oldest years on. But for a while the internet will not have as much on a wide array content on pre-digital topics.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
It's a shame to see many libraries taking such a regressive approach to this. I happen to think libraries and access to information are the cornerstone of a free society -- they level the playing field and provide education and knowledge to people who otherwise couldn't afford it. However as a result of the digital age, our current standard of living and draconian copyright laws, the importance of libraries has diminished of late, as people turn to the web for information, buy their books at Barnes & Noble instead of borrowing them, or are merely incapable of borrowing copyrighted material because of digital or legal barriers created by content owners. What Google is doing here is progressive and in the spirit of free access to information. They're not giving away books, here. They're merely adding the ability to search for and view specific pieces of information. If anything this will only increase demand for the books they're scanning. And on top of that, it will provide access to information for a new generation who might not otherwise be able to afford it. Really now, I thought most librarians were more hip and with-it than this...
Its great that a lot of the people opting out think this will save them, when all you need to do is visit local library and get entire book to read for free. Surely this is worse?
4. Prophet
My colleague Jamie wrote the following letter to Wired yesterday regarding Lawrence Lessig's column supporting Google Print.
I think she makes some compelling points about the problems with Google's plan...
-------------
Lessig's Tough Call
In defending Google Print ("Google's Tough Call," issue 13.11), Lawrence Lessig and others overlook one thing. If the publishers and authors have no rights to prevent this, what rights does Google have to protect its own extensive efforts in creating this database? By their own arguments, the answer must be: none. Google does not own the raw data. In almost talking point fashion, Google, Lessig and others describe this as nothing more than a "card catalog." This description could come back to haunt Google, as the only thing they own is their original presentation of the data itself. And the image of a card catalog does not bring to mind "originality."
If the Google DRM is broken and I create my own "Jamie Print" index on the web... without Google's ads... what basis would Google have to argue? Google can scan a million books and by Lessig's arguments, that investment is irrelevant. If I find a way to download those million books from Google, store the data and use my own search engine, Google's supposed benevolence in creating this project will be hard to swallow amidst a flurry of lawsuits against my superior ad-free index. Google would have little basis to sue except under the DMCA, a statute whose very existence is vilified by Lessig and the very people defending Google Print as progress (and I don't care for it either).
If Google's investment in the project cannot be protected, they may have little incentive to create this and other projects. Isn't this much the same for the publishers and authors seeking protection for the right to control their work? Lessig defends Google Print in the name of progress, but progress is a careful balance of reward and public benefit. Google might not create Google Print if it cannot profit from the ads it inserts and publishers may lose out if they cannot choose how to profit from their properties.
It is almost inevitable that Google Print will be subverted and Google will seek the very same protections that it claims the publishers should not have.
Jamie Cole
New York, NY
I currently attend the University of Michigan, and have encountered much frustration in tracking down books. The university has several libraries and finding some books is nearly impossible. Additionally, the University has old collections and manuscripts that are barely indexed in the University's system. For the purposes of research, scanning the books is a dream come true. Searching for keywords, the ability to quickly find books, and the ability to view old manuscripts that one would normally need to be present at the library (and under supervision) to view. The copyright issue is important, but the books that are in public domain (primary sources especially) should definitely be scanned. As for the copyrighted books themselves, Google does not allow the full book to be viewed. If anything, Google advertises for these books. For a student such as myself, I would not buy the book as it is, so what is the harm?
Have you ever thought about how much more effort it takes to destroy a book in comparison to the effort it takes to destroy its digital copy?
It's the same thing with all digital data: in a few centuries this era will be called the dark ages of information - most of the historical data (text, images, sound) will be lost because it was stored on media that just couldn't hack it. People are just too eager to store precious data in a digital form just because it is convenient.
The owls are not what they seem
You've got to wonder if there will be books published where the contents are designed to increase the book's Google Page Rank.
Though I personally believe what Google are doing is not ethically/morally wrong, they are most probably 'breaking' our unjust (injust?) copyright laws. The only reason they are 'getting away' with it is because they are the most powerful domain on the net. No-one dares mess with Google.
A law suit against Google is very bad publicity, and they could subtly drop your page rank and you'd never notice until the visitors stopped coming.. or even remove you completely.
FTFA: Other librarians are more strongly opposed to the Google project. "I feel that this is a potential disaster on several levels," said Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association and university librarian at California State University, Fresno. "They are reducing scholarly texts to paragraphs. The point of a scholarly text is they are written to be read sequentially from beginning to end, making an argument and engaging you in dialogue."
Opposed to people never being able to read the scholarly texts? Surely a librarian , a proponent of reading, wouldn't mind the ability for anyone to have access to any book [scanned]. And hey, it'll save the enviroment, too.
What I find funniest about the entire copyright debate is how so few people are actually aware of what a flimsy basis copyright rests on.Intellectual property rights are not property, nor rights. They're grants (a decidedly un-libertarian form of state monopoly), given by the government, with the explicit intent of promoting the public good. Copyright holders are created for the good of society, not the other way around. The way I see it, once copyright starts being used to limit the creation and propagation of information and culture rather than encourage it, copyright might as well just not exist
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The gap won't close thanks to constant extensions of copyright's term. When the Sonny Bono Act's 20 extra years lapse, copyright interests will be back in Congress demanding, and receiving, another 20 year extension. Even though 98% of copyrighted works over 50 years old have zero commercial value, the copyright cartel won't allow the public domain to compete against "their IP."
Congress ought to revoke copyright on all books that have been out of print for more than 10 years in the interest of expanding knowledge. If those books entered the public domain, people might read them instead of buying new copyrighted books. Thus the publishers' fear.
How ironic that under copyright those out of print books have no value to publishers or to the public. Publishers aren't profiting on them and nobody has access to the knowledge they contain. Essentially publishers are holding knowledge hostage as an anti-competitive measure. How can copyright be in the public interest in this instance?!
You're actually proposing to tax thought? To have a government say that they are entitled to a piece of something that I have written? Wrong level... Tax the book that is sold, the CD, the file... The way we're doing it now is just fine. I don't want anyone saying that since I didn't pay taxes on time for a text I wrote that it immediatly becomes communal property.
This idea is wrong on so many levels that I can't begin to express how bad it really is... Just the thought of government agency charged with the task of setting the value of and collecting money on an idea makes me want to throw up.
Many (most?) authors are supporting Google in this.
The resistance comes from the publishers, who either feel that they have to prevent a precedent, or are being pressured by other entites with a vested interest in "protection copyrights".
Once a work is in digital form, it may not only be copied perfectly, but it may also be easily modified. It's easy for us to stand back and say there is vastly more benefit than downside. They won't see our side for a long time
Yes... and you'd think this'll prove so attractive that any copyright-holder will be loath to forego it. And you'd then think that some sort of legal/other rights-management will quickly emerge that does allow such functions, but that still makes it at least damned inconvenient to read/copy an entire text.
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
...the organisations taking Google to court?
"An unknown percentage of the rest still are protected by copyright, depending on whether it was renewed. Google's resumption of its scanning of copyrighted works comes amid heated debate in the library community over participation in the program."
It's not the % that are in copyright thats important, because the "Association of American Publishers" doesn't represent *copyright* holders, it represents a tiny subset, and not even its full membership.
Brilliant insight. It's fair that Google get a taste of their own medicine - and have others leach off of them the same way they leach off of the true content providers - the very websites they index - without providing them adequate compensation.
Disney deliberately make sure that their movies are only on shore release DVD/VHS runs to keep the price and demand up when they come to remaster a new release. It's a way of making sure you make money from your IP.
Personally I think the length of copyright should be reduced to no longer than 25years(If you can't milk a product in 25Years then why not let someone else have the chance)
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Complaints from the copyright holders are understandable. If they could find an effective way to charge you each time you read a book you'd already bought or prevent people from selling used books, they would.
My guess on the librarian complaint has to do with research. Someone commented here the other day that "Researchers" have become "Googlers". In some cases this might be true. It also means that someone sitting in their living room using Google ( or other search engine ) and the 'Net can gain access to information from such a wide array of sources that not long ago required a professional researcher to do.
I can't help but be reminded of "The Desk Set" with Hepburn and Tracy. The research dept of a TV network was getting a massive computer. The researchers thought it was intended to replace them and the stacks of books they used for reference. I think the complaints from libraries on Google's scanning of "everything" is it allows access to the information by everyone. Librarians are the keeper of the keys, guardians of the rare books, masters of the Dewey Decimal System. Letting just anyone access to the stacks erodes the requirements for their services.
If a 10,000 book library had all the books scanned and indexed and available via a simple Google search then the librarians are relagatd to a position not too far removed from the Blockbuster store clerk putting videos back on the shelf. There'd be a position for someone to decide what subset of books to keep on hand, but less positions overall.
I'd love it if Google indexed everything in print. I have 100 or so cookbooks. If I could do a search, limited to my "library" for recipes for paella, I could walk over and pull just those books off the shelf to see which I wanted to use. I don't care if I can't read the whole recipe via Google, I'll just use it to refer me to the dead tree version I have on the shelf.
Other than the copyright holders who are just wanting money from anything based on what they've published ( reasonably so ), the others are either luddites who don't understand or people trying to protect their livelyhood.
The fact that out-of-print books have copyright protection is further proof that Congress is more interested in hewing to the corporate line than adhering to Constitutional principles. How does preventing any further publication of a work for nearly 100 years promote the useful arts and sciences?
I would make copyright dependent upon making the copyrighted material available for the duration of the copyright. If it falls out of publication for a year and a day, then the copyright lapses. Making the material available online would be a cheap and easy way to maintain your copyright. Those that don't like that notion are free to publish and warehouse physical copies. In order to close an obvious loophole, I would further require that the copyrighted material be available at no more than the original cost, adjusted each year for inflation.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
What you missed here is that Google intends to make a lot of money from selling ads on the pages where the search results are shown. The publishers see this as someone else taking their intellectual property and using it to make a profit, without asking their permission, and more importantly, without offering them a share of the profits. This is not about fears of people downloading books or not buying the books because they can get a 3 sentence answer from Google (anyone whose question can be answered in 3 sentences wasn't going to buy the book anyway). It's clear that even the publishers involved in the lawsuits realize that this service would result in higher booksales.
It's a question of how far fair use rights extend. Fair use does not prohibit you from making a profit from exercising your rights (the NY Times Review of Books can excerpt content in a review and profit from selling ads on that page). The publishers argue that Google's use of their material goes beyond fair use, particularly because they're copying the entire work and not just an excerpt.
It will be up to a court to weigh the many factors involved and come up with a ruling. The obvious question is, if Google loses the lawsuits, what then happens to web search engines that spider and cache copyrighted text without the author's explicit permission? Will they be held to the same standard, and will plain old Google, Yahoo!, MSN Search and their ilk become "opt in" only search engines?
This has probably been mentioned in previous articles but oh well.
Many librarians I have met (not all, or even most, but some) have this weird mentality of "I am the gatekeeper of knowledge, you must have my leave to access the wisdom of the ages." The basically believe that knowledge is so sacred (it is) that only they are fit to gaurd it and distribute it (very not true).
When I was younger (elementry school, early-mid 90s) and you needed to research something you had to goto the library (either your schools or the public one), use a computer to look up a book (if you knew what it was) or (more often) ask a librarian to help you find books that would be useful for your topic. This gave the librarians great power because it allows them to deturmine all the information you are going to be using. When you learn and retain something, it becomes a part of you, by deciding what you learn they are in essense chaning you.
Now (for me, ever since middle school), you want to know more about ancient egyptian art? Google it and find 100s of pages of information (well, realistically you will only likely use about 10 of those pages but you get the idea). Want to know more about the 2000 US election? Google it. Before, if you wanted to find out information about certain topics (primarily recent or highly specific) then you were out of luck because often the libraries didn't have it. However, with things such as google and wikipedia, you now have access to almost any information you want from anywhere you have a computer with an internet connection.
(Beware, point soon approaching. Be prepared to duck)
Taking all this into account, it is not suprising that many librarians are reacting so harshly to this. They are all for making information more accesible but not if it doesn't go through them. Its like a company with a monopoly that it has had for ages: They've become used to the power and don't want to give it up.
The world has been slowly changing. It has become more and more difficult to control information. And as the cliche goes: Knowledge is power.
Speaking is NOT communication
Mr. Gorman, who said the American Library Association doesn't have an official position on the subject, described Google's argument that Web users will be able to look at several snippets and then decide whether they want to buy or read the book as "ridiculous." Further, he noted that as a published author, he opposes Google's intention to build an enormous database that includes copyrighted texts. "It's a flaunting of my intellectual property rights," he said.
Shouldn't that be "flouting"?
Compilation works, such as story and poetry collections and songbooks, have mixed copyrights:
The collection has a collection copyright and each story/song/poem has its own.
If a story's copyright has lapsed, will Google make that entire story available in the same way it does public-domain volumes?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The data you refer to isn't on the web. It isn't even digital. That's part of the issue...
5. CowboyNeal
Both the district and appeals courts stressed the service that Arriba was providing to everyone by linking to web sites where an artist/photographer had made his art available online. The thumbnail itself, the court noted, was of such poor quality as to be of no value, something that isn't always true of a quote. (And one of the worst ways to treat an author is to quote them out-of-context, a practice Google's scheme will encourage.) The artist/photographer had also chosen to post his work online, thus putting it on the market. The Arriba link took interested parties to a site where they could pay the artist/photographer for the rights to a usable image. Arriba was creating a win/win situation for everyone and, once the image was thumbnailed, the full version no longer existed at Arriba's web site. All those factors taken together were sufficient to make what ArribaSoft was doing legal.
But the Ariba/Google parallel only exists for books that are in print, being marketed online, and paying royalties to the copyright holder. Out of print, books that are only available used or through libraries do not parallel the AribaSoft case. What Google is much more like sending someone with a digital camera to art galleries and museums, ignoring any wishes of the artist. Owning a copy isn't owning the copyright. That's why the "approval" Google has from the libraries is so silly, as are its claims that it is simply making a 'really big' card catalog.
The reader may benefit. Google and whoever profits from Google's linking may benefit, but no royalties flow to the author due to the linking, nor has the author chosen (present tense) to place the book online or in the marketplace. He may, in fact, consider the earlier work so dreadful, he intends to use copyright laws to their full extent to keep down his embarassment. And despite the squawks of some posting here, we have no legal right to get easy access to what someone else has published. A copyright bestows the right to say, "No more copies will be published." That's why, for instance, an author can prevent anyone from making a movie derivative.
Arriba is a marvelous case for defending unauthorized linking and for indexing the web itself, as Google does. And as a Ninth Circuit appeals decision for someone living in the Ninth Circuit, it was "controlling" in my successful battle with Tolkien estate lawyers over whether my chronology of a fictional work was fair use--the law in that matter having been corrupted by some dreadful Second Circuit court actions in 1998.
But Arriba is weak precisely where Google is being challenged most strongly by authors and publishers--Google's right to scan and index the entire text of books that are in library collections but are, for the most part, are out of print. For those books, Google cannot link to a website where the purchase of the book will result in income for the copyright holder. That's the key issue. Google Print may be a winning situation for Google and readers, but the copyright holder doesn't get a cent. Indeed, the very point of Google's action is to blast ahead, not bothering to even look for authors because that would be too much trouble. Authors, on the other hand, are expected to go to the enormous trouble of tracking down every instance of the use of their material by Google and a thousand Google-clones, and opt-out of each individually.
And I might add that I say this as a "one Mac mini" author/editor/publisher who's placed virtually every
"Scanning" of old books is typically done with a camera photographing a book lying in a cradle (to not split the binding). One image is taken of each page or every two pages (the latter is faster, but has focus problems).
Once photographed, OCR software grinds away. There are errors. Some projects proof-read the errors (this is very expensive), but with Google's volume they cannot. Even when not proof-read, however, the OCR'ed text has high value in search engines.
For examples of the resulting product, see U of Michigan's Making of America or the Library of Congress American Memory.
New, in-print books can be scanned destructively. That is, saw off the binding and feed into a sheet feed scanner. This works with publishers who have extra copies they can expend.
Movie makers fought the VCR all the way to the Supreme Court. Jack Valenti, then head of the MPAA, said the VCR would be the Boston Strangler to the movie industry. Video sales became more profitable than the movie theater. Before that was the music industry - not the RIAA and record industry, I'm going way back to London in the 1600 - 1700's when the music industry was publishing sheet music. They fought against that new thing called "copyright." Yes, against copyright. They were busy copying every composer out there and didn't want composers to limit their profits by claiming copyright. Now copyright is their bread and butter. (Of course tehy found new ways to screw the composers). You watch. The publishers will fight Google's indexing as hard as they can. The courts will ultimately realize that indexing the real world books and improving access to the contents of libraries is so beneficial to the public that we have to allow it as fair use. Then it will turn out that the publishers will make more money than ever by selling on-line books that people discover via the Google search. Enntrenched industries hate change and will fight against it even when it will ultimately make them more money.
Here's the corrected, live link: http://www.rod-neep.co.uk/books/production/scan/sc anning.htm
You should NOT be able to obtain material for the purposes of personal entertainment that is out of print but nevertheless covered by copyright. Why? because there is a compelling public interest to encourage the creation of novel works. To put things into persepctive: EA (I thin) made LHX attack chopper, a PC game that is virtually impossible to find these days. It can still theoretically provide entertainment, however, it is out of print. Should you be able to pirate this abandonware because it is "part of your culture?" Absolutely not. I think the value to society of having companies advance the state of the art by producing new works far outweighs the fact that you'd rather play an old game for free rather than pay money for the numerous new games out there. After all, in the case of virtually ALL abandonware that i have seen, a copy is available out there on ebay to be purchased legitimately, and, where there is not - that is to say, where legitimate demand exceeds supply of existing licenses, companies can often be called upon to sell the rights for further sale (for example, that classic game "Empire Deluxe") or companies can find compelling reasons to themselves donate the item into the public domain (Sierra's "Red Baron"). Imagine if all game software written before, say, 5 years ago was "free". The net result would be a watering down of the current software market, and a net loss in choice for society as fewer companies would enter the market, and those that would enter would create fewer titles as the overall economic pie would be smaller - in other words, a net loss to society.
That said, you SHOULD be able to obtain out of print material for the purposes of genuine academic research. Still, there is rarely, if ever, a reason why you would have to resort to piracy to obtain such material as far as books are concerned. An example of this would be if you were doing legitimate research on, say, Disney's racist past. There is a complelling public interest to have acadmic researchers be able to do what they need to do in order to locate material that companies have tried to abandon for non-economic reasons.
The point is, if we DONT let companies securely turn material into abandonware, then their incentive to produce goes down. This is basic economics and it makes good policy sense as well.
That also said, this entire issue will be fairly moot in a few years or decades, as old stuff is digitized and the cost of maintaining old catalogues drops to near nil.
The difference back then was neither the US or the UK recognized each other's copyright laws back then.
The other problem with digital copies is that they can accumulate errors (known as "typos" or sometimes "bad grammar") during the transmission process. Solutions include replacing worn cables or connectors, avoiding intense magnetic fields, or enrolling in night school.
I think a lot of you missed the truck Jamie drove through Google's legal problems with this project.
Many of these responses try to dispel her position by stating that Google couldn't care less if you download the data. But that only further highlights the issue -- if Google loses control of the data that they do not own, they have very little legal basis to protect it.
And that is a very big problem when Google is arguing that a third party (Google) should be allowed to store vast libraries of complete copyrighted works that they do not own.
The owners of the copyrighted works cannot be forced into depending on the discretion of a third party to protect their works, regardless of Google's assurances, or whether the owner ever heard of the ability to opt-out or not.
I had this idea once that the only way I can make sure my important document withstands the test of time is to make multiple copies and distribute the copies across different locations (i.e. home, office, gf's house, etc). This is the same reason why I make multiple copies of an important document and post it in multiple locations over the internet.
Making a book available online is just about the same thing -- it only serves to preserve it, and what better way to do so other than making something like Google, with its many layers of protection against data corruption, its backup? It's the best thing to preserve your most treasured works other than spreading it via P2P.
How many times have I tried to open an old link, only to discover that it is already gone or most of the content has already changed? Well, good thing there's Google cache and the Wayback Machine as form of "backup".
Take off every 'sig'!
All your 'sig' are belong to us!
Go try it.
What do you see there on the right?
> The point is, if we DONT let companies securely turn material into abandonware, then their incentive to produce goes
> down. This is basic economics and it makes good policy sense as well.
Thats just bullshit.
Offering someone a incentive to produce but without _any_ limits to what is demanded to continue to produce shouldnt be a part of any policy either, but which is what you are recommending.
The company's incentive to produce would without doubt rise if we exempted them from paying taxes to the state, so why shouldnt this be done too?
I spent $50 for a book a few weeks ago. Practical Common Lisp, by Peter Seibel. I had been looking for a good, basic Lisp book for a while, and I found the entire text available on-line at http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ . After reading about a chapter and a half, I decided that this was exactly what I was looking for, and I bought the dead-tree version.
It's not the first time, either, for me.
It works for fiction, too. If you're a science fiction reader, you probably noticed that Baen Books was doing some similar things, and I bought some of them that I might not have, otherwise.
Perhaps the copyright holders should notice that we are in the 21st Century, and things are changing, mostly for the better.
I had forgotten how much cooler teenagers look when they are smoking. Oh, wait
Yeah! Those authors, painters, etc. who want to artificially drive up future collector prices by making "limited edition" prints or Hallmark ornaments (priced the original Hallmark ornament of the Enterprise lately?) are robbing me of my right to buy a cheap copy of their work!
B@st@rds! Expecting me to pay hundreds of dollars for a book that originally sold for 10 cents just because there are only 50 copies still in existence and they don't want to print new, non-collector copies for me to buy!
There is really no precedent for what Google is doing, so it has become a test-case for the limits of fair-use. We may all agree that it seems obvious that it is fair-use, in fact many lawyers have suggested just that, but until a court of law deems it fair-use Google will be challenged. It will probably go to the Supreme Court within a couple of years and we can only hope that the conservative justices being appointed by Bush will allow it under fair-use. Fortunately, Google has fairly deep pockets so may be able to win the case.
LHX Attack Helicopter? Wow, I remember that game for my old PC, quite a blast. If all those 5 1/4" floppies haven't been thrown out, I may have that lying around somewhere. As far as finding a drive to read it, that would be a little more difficult for me.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
Let's imagine the situation where there is a piece of open source that is not used by anybody. Or has not been updated in the last several years. The license is GPL, and somebody picks up the slack and updates the software. However, they don't release the sources because they don't want to since after all nobody was maintaining the sources in the first place!
What would the Slashdot community say? Evil, and whatever other rude comment many could think of.
My point is that with copyright I have the choice to determine what happens or does not happen with my content. Open Source like the GPL uses the copyright to keep things open, but commericial uses copyright to restrict. Each is a choice made by their respective owners and NEED TO BE RESPECTED!!!
Because if you feel right to rip off those that restrict, then others are right to keep open things closed!!! Copyright is a double edged sword and many forget that!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
The owners of the copyrighted works cannot be forced into depending on the discretion of a third party to protect their works, regardless of Google's assurances, or whether the owner ever heard of the ability to opt-out or not.
Yes, owners of copyrighted works CAN be forced into depending on the discretion of a third party to protect their works. That's life. If copyright holders are really so scared of their works being copied, they can lock them all up in a vault and never sell them to anyone. Then they are really protected.
A library has a bunch of books. They protect those books. I can go to a library, steal the books, make copies, and sell the copies. This is illegal. I don't think any court would honestly hold the library responsible. In fact, I don't have to steal the books. I can borrow them, take them home, make copies and violate copyright and the library is STILL not responsible. In fact, I can use the photocopiers INSIDE the library to do my dirty work. That's life. I broke the law, the library did not.
Now I admit that the Google database is a little bit different. But as long as each copy they are making is fair use, then they are allowed to hold the database. Copyright holders can't say "but what if someone steals it and makes copies!!??" If that happens, you can sue the thief/copyright-violator, but not Google (barring any obvious negligence etc.).
Now, is it fair in the first place for Google to make those copies, and let people search (but not view) them? That's a separate issue that the courts are looking into. I personally find that it advances society without compromising the copyright-holder's monopoly. Therefore, I think it's legal. I also happen to think it's the "right" (ethical, etc.) thing to do, for society.
if Google loses control of the data that they do not own, they have very little legal basis to protect it.
Indeed, if Google loses control somehow, it will be up to the actual copyright holders to pursue legal action and so on. That's life. Libraries are not responsible (unless they willfully encourage people to break the law), and so neither should Google be responsible (unless they willfully encourage people to break the law).
I think an unintentional statement was made by the U.S. government's inaction against Microsoft. Basically it was... "Let the games begin. Yeehaw!!!"
We need more wrestlers in government though. I could just see the look on foriegn leader's faces if we put the entire cast of WWE in office. That would own so hard.
That is an interesting question. Regardless of copyright laws, support of robots.txt allows the owner of a site to opt out. However, with books it is very different.
I don't think its google's mandate really. If anyone should be considered as trusted with this task, wouldn't it be the libraries and universities themselves?
The uproar is about copying (scanning is exactly that) a copyrighted material without the permission or knowledge of the owner, while it clearly satates so on/in most books. It is a full copy of the data and by today's law not really allowed.
It is in principal as illegal as a student photocopying a book (at least it was illegal when I was a student). While maybe not financially smart if using a photocopy, having it in a digital copy is different. Illegal uses/reproduction or stealing of the material is very easy.
What I want ot know is this...
What if I copied the last 10 year's films, and when RIAA comes to sue me, I say it is the same as google copying books, since I use it to search. And I share it with other "searchers" all around the net, through P2P search system (which happens to be called torrent)?
Besides the fact that I don't have the $90B to drag that case in courts for 1000 years.. what is the basic difference?
"From the moment I could talk, I was ordered to listen" - Cat Stevens
I guess Google, with all its pHDs, has never heard of: "Free eBooks - Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/" Geez, just give them a wad of donation dollars and index their collection. It's 16,000 public-domain works that have already been scanned and proofed by volunteers.
You should NOT be able to obtain material for the purposes of personal entertainment that is out of print but nevertheless covered by copyright. Why? because there is a compelling public interest to encourage the creation of novel works.
Then how are we to populate the public domain? That's the purpose of copyright law, now creation of novel works.
Should you be able to pirate this abandonware because it is "part of your culture?
Yes. In fact, I favor stripping copyright of any work not published or made available for a certain period of years. I think 5 years is a good period, but you are of course free to disagree.
where legitimate demand exceeds supply of existing licenses, companies can often be called upon to sell the rights for further sale
Unless the company no longer exists and ownership is murky. Then noone can do so.
Imagine if all game software written before, say, 5 years ago was "free". The net result would be a watering down of the current software market, and a net loss in choice for society
How is this different from the current state of things?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
How do they get away with Copyright infringment and we don't huh? Google says that if some of the works still fall within Copyright boundaries they're still going to do it regardless.
That's a direct contradiction of the law. We do it and get burned, so should they!
http://www.gibby.net.au
Mod parent up!
Even more likely, books will be published with AdSense ads pre-inserted.
Welcome to the Googleverse. There's a black hole for information in the center of it, and man does that thing suck.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Yahoo's plan is to scan books where the copyright has expired (Mark Twain, Henry james, William Shakespeare, etc) or where authors has signed copyright waivers (O'Reilly Media, National Archive of UK, etc). Yahoo! also plays nice with others - HP will do the scanning, Adobe is donating software, and most importantly, the results from the Open Content Alliance can be used by anyone - including Google or Microsoft.
Why can't Google play nice?
It is simply greed. Limiting culture through copyright is the same thing to a society as putting a copyright on the use of the letter "E" would be to language. Language is how individuals communicate with each other. Culture (inclusive of music, literature, etc.) is how a society communicates with itself about its values, aspirations, and innovations. If you freeze culture in the straitjacket of copyright, then you necessarily freeze the ability of a society to dream, improve, and innovate.
There is a reason why the Founding Fathers fought about copyright. In a limited fashion, it could promote innovation, as creators would have the economic incentive to create. Unrestricted, it would stifle innovation as surely as unrestricted reproduction would. We now find ourselves proving out the naysayers in that original debate.
Children of the RIAA will argue that copyright has been a boon to the U.S. But if we had honored it from the first the American Industrial Revolution would have been long delayed because the engineers and entrepreneurs of the Republic would not have been able to copy British innovations. If we had honored it from the first then the evolution of an American voice in literature would have been delayed because many early novelists borrowed liberally from Imperial British sources. And, most famously of all, especially here on Slashdot, this country would not even have had a national anthem if Francis Scott Key had not lifted the melody of the Star-Spangled Banner wholesale from a British comic opera.
So consider that carefully, children of the RIAA. Much of what you associate with American strength would not now exist if you had ruled then. Many of the things, the rights, the freedoms, the material comforts, the power, and the influence would not now be yours to cast away if you sat in a council of influence then. It simply would not have come to be.
Human societies and cultures live and die on innovation, which is wholly dependant on the free flow of information.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
drop the copyright period to 28 years or life of the author + 14 years and apply it retroactively.
Won't work. Under the Berne Convention, the United States is required to recognize foreign copyrights for at least life plus 50.
the governments of the world are greatly remiss in not creating a copyright exemption for out-of-print items that were never intended to have specifically limited runs.
Who makes the decision that a work was "never intended to have [a] specifically limited run[]"? Besides, at least Canada and the United States have taken steps toward partially opening orphaned works that are nearing the end of their copyright term.
Then how are we to populate the public domain? That's the purpose of copyright law, now creation of novel works.
Copyright exists "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Whether "Progress" means expansion of the public domain or expansion of the total number of works in existence is still hotly debated by legal philosophers.
Open Source like the GPL uses the copyright to keep things open, but commericial uses copyright to restrict. Each is a choice made by their respective owners and NEED TO BE RESPECTED!!!
Problem is when purveyors of proprietary publications push their property into the public perspective and then go lawsuit-happy against not only their fans but also people who create other works not even knowing what they're subconsciously copying. Mickey Mouse, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue are part of public knowledge and are "public domain" in every sense except that of copyright. When you create folklore, don't be surprised if people treat it like folklore.
Besides, why does an extended copyright need to be respected? For example, Walter Elias Disney created and published the initial Mickey Mouse trilogy (Plane Crazy, Gallopin' Gaucho, and Steamboat Willie) with the expectation that the copyright under the 1909 act would be renewed in its 28th year and expire after its 56th. George Gershwin wrote and published Rhapsody in Blue under the same expectations. What's with this Sonny Bono 95 year bullshit?
And "we" passed laws granting the protections Google seems bent on ignoring.
I wasn't even born when the Copyright Act of 1978 was passed, and I wasn't old enough to vote when the 105th Congress (NET Act, Bono Act, DMCA) was elected. How can "we" be responsible?
If you want it bad enough to steal it, why not go and buy a used copy?
Where? If you suggest a web-based auction venue, does "0 results" mean anything to you?
Google don't have any fair use rights. (Neither does anyone else under US law: fair use is an affirmative defence.)
In the opinion of the Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft, the Court hinted that the fair use defense is necessary to make copyright compatible with the First Amendment.
you meant to say exponential scale.
Yes, you're missing the entire concept of copyright. You know, where the author has the right to decide when, where and how their work may be copied?
The point of copyright and patent law is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". In fact, copyright and patent law are the only powers that Article I of the U.S. Constitution grants to the Congress with an explicit justification. How does this search engine oppose "promot[ing] the Progress"?
When the Sonny Bono Act's 20 extra years lapse, copyright interests will be back in Congress demanding, and receiving, another 20 year extension.
The opinion of the Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft hinted that the Court upheld the 1998 copyright term extension only because it could not find a clear pattern to the Congress's behavior that suggested that it was actually trying to create a perpetual copyright on the installment plan. Some legal scholars theorize that the Court would likely throw out a third successive "Chastity Bono" term extension on two grounds: First, three successive extensions would establish a clearer pattern of behavior than two. Second, the Court might draw from a tradition in common law that any lease longer than 99 years is considered a perpetual lease.
Well, we backed out of the ballistic missile treaty. This should be a bit easier ;)
Rolling back copyright terms to 1909 levels would require backing out of the Berne Convention, which in turn would require backing out of TRIPS, which in turn would require backing out of the World Trade Organization. What would that do to a country's international reputation?
If all works first published before 1923 remain copyrighted, Project Gutenberg will eventually run out of material to scan. What happens then?
If google can do this, why not me; I'll copy all the books I get from the libray and put up a website with search functionality (ok, no full download of the book).
-If all works first published before 1923 remain copyrighted, Project
+If all works first published on or after 1923 remain copyrighted in the United States, Project
The artist does - for example, one-of-a-kind paintings and sculptures, or prints clearly labled as being one in a limited series. In such cases it should be obvious that a limited, one-time print run was intended
Nothing is "obvious" to a Hollywood lawyer. If the author of a work makes the decision whether or not to label a print run as a limited edition, then authors and their publishers will label every printing of every work as a limited edition just to take advantage. So when DisneyCo puts a serial number on each print of a movie and on each VHS or DVD copy in a six-month run, can DisneyCo claim that the release is a "limited edition"?
Indeed, if Google loses control somehow, it will be up to the actual copyright holders to pursue legal action and so on. That's life.
This is one of the stupidest comments I have ever read on Slashdot. There is so little understanding of the legal system it is heartbreaking and why is it always people who write things like "that's life" or "get real" or "wake up" who are the first people to flip out when their own personal welfare or property are damaged.
But as long as each copy they are making is fair use
That legal issue is unclear regarding Google's Project.
Copyright holders can't say "but what if someone steals it and makes copies!!??"
Actually, they can.
If that happens, you can sue the thief/copyright-violator, but not Google (barring any obvious negligence etc.)
Yes, you can sue Google.
The "we" is the American public, of which you are a part.
So what can I do to help put representatives and senators in Congress who will not be slaves to the major publishers of proprietary works of entertainment?
Not very well, apparently
No need for a drive :-)
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
I think that it is really great that Google does scan books because it makes it alot easier to find information and makes the books prevail longer and can get me attention to books which I would else never read or know existed.
But where are these online books? Does Google have any site for the books yet?
What format are the books in? OpenDocument? PDF? HTML? TXT ?
I hadn't done a search on it yet, but you are still my new hero. :D
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
You make very decisive statements, yet provide no references to back them up, nor any rationale why you are right. If your knowledge of the legal system is so advanced, why not enlighten the rest of us? Why is it that people who write "That's the stupidest thing I've ever read" are never the ones to provide the discussion with any useful information?
Heh. Disney is actively evil on so many levels they make Microsoft look like Buddha.
I remember an ad campaign for one of their extremely old (ie: should long since have been out of copyright) movies back around 1995-99. Might have been Fantasia. Anyway, the entire ad campaign was "THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO OWN $MOVIE THIS MILLENIUM".
Um, yeah, really?
I believe $MOVIE was re-released on DVD by 2001 or 2002. They may have even advertised it as "available for the first time this millenium". Hilarity always ensues with these folks.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
See - sex DOES help you live longer.
Actually, the original Winnie-the-Pooh books are in public domain
How? The four canonical Pooh books by A. A. Milne are When We Were Very Young (1924), Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), Now We Are Six (1927), and The House at Pooh Corner (1928). All were published on or after 1923 and are thus subject to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Milne died in 1956, making the works subject to European and Australian copyright term extension until 2027. Was there a faulty notice or a failure to renew?
Of course, all these measure are a joke: if you really want to make an illegal copy, you just need a scanner or a self-service copier. But that doesn't remove the obligation of the library to make copying as hard for you as they can.
Am I searching too fast? "A computer virus or spyware application is sending us automated requests, and it appears that your computer or network has been infected." I was then prompted to enter in the word verification. Then, on my next query, I was prompted to enter my gmail password.
See reply to other person trying to sound highly educated.
r eshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=217&tid=123&mode=thread &pid=13926426#13947121
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=167011&th