Slashdot Mirror
Reining in Google
CDPatten writes "The Washington Times has an op-ed piece by two writers typically
on opposing sides of the isle, Pat Schroeder and Bob Barr. The article is
brief, but overwhelmingly opposes the Google
Print service. From the article 'Not only is Google trying to rewrite copyright
law, it is also crushing creativity ...Google envisions a world in which all content is
free; and of course, it controls the portal through which Internet user's access
that content. It would completely devalue everyone else's property and massively
increase the value of its own.'. It sounds to me like they might
be slightly peeved that Google is resuming the scanning.
1. The Washington Times != The Washington Post. One is a bastion of DC journalism. The other is only slightly better than a tabloid.
2. Let Google scan. Let me search. Only by having Google's (or someone's) index available will I be able to easily find a book I never knew existed. The Dewey Decimal System's got nothing on full text indexing.
Who wants to start posting Barr and Schroeder's voting records?
Or does their objection to doing it "unilaterally" merely mean "our old colleages aren't getting their cut"?
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
As opposed to what lobbyists have done, rewriting copyright laws (extending them infinitely) and crushing creativity (you so much as write something similar to us and we release the lawyers)?
We can only hope, for the good of all society, that this day comes soon.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Let's think carefully about the 'Google cache' thing though - that's dubious because it allows people access to content without going through the content provider's access mechanisms.
For things the "content providers" already made publicly available, for crying out loud. What you want to do, is applying extra restrictions management over what was emitted to the public. If you want that "content" to be private, you know how to restrict it in the first place, Google will obey your request.
And for books, Google Print scans books for which the copyright has already expired. Promoting them is a huge boon to the society, to everyone except for publishers who want revenues from books that are supposed to be available to the public.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
I do believe in Copyrights (that alone may get this modded down to -255). However, if google lives up to the claim they will only provide snippets, how is that different than what any web site, quoting an author does. Is this web site in violation Dilbert -why you are wrong by quoting from Dilbert? It appears fair use to me.
Where google may have issues, is if anyone figures out a way to reconstruct a book in total. They would give people like this a lot of ammunition against them. Of course, the library does not prevent me from scanning a book if I take it home, but that is something that will be missed in the hype around it. I am not sure how they could prevent this, but these are some pretty smart guys.
In this case, the authors sound more like they want a cut of the click through, regardless of sales. What may be interesting in the end is book sellers would be the most likely to advertise on Google Print. A "click here to buy this book" type of link.
Dumb and Dumber, as far as I'm concerned. Did you ever see her on "Jeopardy", when she failed to come up with basic answers about the US government? Did you ever wonder why he so strongly opposed the will of the people that he wrote (and got passed) legislation to circumvent even PLACING a referendum on legalizing marijuana on the ballot? I don't want to hear or see what these two have to say, it simply brings down the general level of human discourse.
Two wastes of horseflesh, they are.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
they index the content of websites/books and provide it for a cost; a side advertisement that is related. They are not claiming to do it for mankind, even though it is a clear benefit.
Within a few years (if it has not happened already) Google's advertising revenue will dwarf all domestic newspaper ad revenues.
And your point is?????? News media over the last 5 years have become lapdogs and no longer do their jobs (report esp on politicians). So instead, BLOGGERS have really been replacing newspaper as a major source of info, not google. Google is actually helping newspaper via news.google.com.
Is this unchecked growth a good thing?And why is it not? If you can do it better, than do so. Google shows innovative capitalism at its best. They not only have done innovative work, but have continued to do so. They do not have a monopoly, but even they do, it is natural (as opposed to MS's which was/is an illegally aquired and maintained).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Excuse me Mr. Dumbass, this op-ed piece is in the Washington Times, not the Post.
A board of directors at a newspaper generally has very little to do with editorial content.
This is not the opinion of the newspaper, but an op-ed piece, representing the opinions of the article's authors.
Conspiracy theories aside, the Washington Times is a pretty substandard paper -- they print more 'news' stories than any legit paper I've ever seen that are based on single, anonymous sources -- stories which are transparent plants that fall apart days (or less) after publication. This is the paper that 'broke' the story that all of Iraq's secret weapons were smuggled out of the country by the Russians after the US invasion. Its sole source for that one (IIRC) was an 'anonymous White House official' -- perhaps the one who was just indicted.
Besides that, the Wash Times is an organ of the Moonies. [Note: the information on the preceeding link is mostly correct, except they describe the Times as a 'highly respected newspaper'. It isn't.]
The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act was passed by a voice vote in both houses of Congress. Pusillanimous toads, the lot of them. So no, you don't know how your Congresscritter voted.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
It's always been my understanding that Copyright doesn't cover MAKING copies, only DISTRIBUTING them
Incorrect. It covers both.
This means that I can go to the store, buy a CD, and rip it to MP3 to put on my iPod. That makes 3 copies of the work (the rip to WAV (even if it's just in RAM, it's still a copy), compression to MP3, putting it on my iPod). Am I violating copyright there? The courts say no (IIRC, the lawsuit against the Rio covered this). However, I am violating copyright if I give someone else a copy of my MP3s.
Technically, both acts, making the copy and distributing it to your friend, are infringing uses. However, you have a defense to the first infringement, aka "fair use", that you would not necessarily have in the second case.
It's a guarantee that I can't give away or sell full copies of your work.
Or partial copies as well, or plagiarized or derivative works. Copyright is much broader than what you suggest.
They index the copies they make (and keep to themselves) and give only a few lines of text in the search results.
But the copies they make are themselves an infringement. The question is whether Google has a fair use defense that would allow them to make these copies. We discussed Google Print in my Copyright class a week or so ago, my copyright professor seems to think that Google is probably engaged in copyright infringement on a mass scale (although in typical law professor fashion, he didn't come right out and say so).
fuck you.