Slashback: OpenOffice, SuitSat, Google Books

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including Sutor's response to OpenOffice control, Google forgives BMW, SunComm vows to make right their DRM debacle, SuitSat-1 still transmitting, and Defense of Google Book Search -- Read on for details.

Sutor says "no way" to VNUnet OpenOffice story. Andy Updegrove writes "Earlier today a story by Tom Sanders at Vnunet.com covered by Slashdot didn't make sense to me, as it ran counter to the joint determination of Sun and IBM to make ODF succeed. In part, the story relied on an email exchange with Bob Sutor, IBM's Vice President of Standards and Open Source, so I asked Bob whether the story got it wrong. The answer? Sutor said: 'To be more clear, and on the record, IBM and Sun are working together happily and effectively on the OpenDocument Format. I think we've made a terrific amount of progress in the last year and that's because of the broad cooperation by the community. I'm not sure why we were dragged into the referenced story, but it was certainly nothing we initiated.'"

Google forgives BMW after delisting. dbucowboy writes "According to Matt Cutts, Google has re-included BMW.de in the Google index due to their willingness to cease supposed blackhat SEO practices." From the article: "I appreciate BMW's quick response on removing JavaScript-redirecting pages from BMW properties. The webspam team at Google has been in contact with BMW, and Google has reincluded bmw.de in our index. Likewise, ricoh.de has also removed similar doorway pages and has been reincluded in Google's index."

SunComm vows to make right their DRM debacle. Rinisari writes "SunnComm, creators of the highly controversial MediaMax DRM implementation on a number of Sony BMG and indie CDs have issued a statement through the EFF that they are committed to notifying consumers and issuing updates/patches to fix security holes caused by the software. MediaMax is one of the two copy protection schemes about which Sony is being sued class-action style."

SuitSat-1 weak but not dead. zark22 writes "Suitsat, the amateur radio transmitter stuffed inside a surplus Russian spacesuit and chucked out the International Space station is alive and well, if somewhat weak and staticky. Users can still follow its progress at the Suitsat webpage."

UMich President defends Google book search. eaj writes "University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman defended the legality and ethics [PDF] of the Google Book Search project to a meeting of the Association of American Publishers on Monday. The AAP is suing Google over the book scanning involved in the project. From the article: '[We] believe this is a legal, ethical, and noble endeavor that will transform our society. Legal because we believe copyright law allows us the fair use of millions of books that are being digitized. Ethical because the preservation and protection of knowledge is critically important to the betterment of humankind. And noble because this enterprise is right for the time, right for the future, right for the world of publishing, right for all of us.' CNet news also has a video."

Comments

Suit Sat

[MBCook]

I got up REAL early to listen for Suit Sat last Sunday but didn't hear a thing. I've since heard that they've turn on the ISS's cross-band repeater which boosts the power from under 1/2 Watt to 10 Watts. Still, I don't think I'd be able to pick it up with my equipment. I've got a Yaesu VX-7R and a 18" ducky antenna. If I wasn't so busy right now I'd build a little Yagi and try to use that to pick the thing up.

--KC0QBP

Put BMW in a Suit

[saskboy]

Google pitched BMW out an air lock, it's fortunate for BMW that they were let back in from the cold.

I wonder if Google's mercenary tactics to fight BMW's mercenary tactics were justified? Did they give BMW a day to remove the doorway page?

Too much power

[dedazo]

Anyone else feel Google has way too much power already? I mean, who needs domain names anymore? I just type what I'm looking for into Google and up comes the right answer. Right? Well sometimes.

Google owns their search engine of course, but I think it's just a little evil to essentially make an entire company disappear from teh interwebs. If they weren't so pervasive then this would be a non-issue, but when I see these stories I get a little worried. Hopefully they won't expand their definition of "cheating" to include things we might think are OK.

Re:I'm tired of these ham-handed appeals to morali

[PCM2]

Copyright is not property. The books are the property of whoever owns the individual books. The right to copy those books are something entirely different.

Exactly. So if Google wanted to establish a service where it kept a gigantic room that contained a copy of every book in publication, and you could call up Google on the phone and give an operator a snippet of text you wanted to find, and a guy would leaf through every one of those books and mark down where he found the text, then it would be perfectly within its rights to do so.

Copying the contents of all those books into a database for search purposes, on the other hand, is a different matter.

Here are some alternative options:

1. The publisher could decide to put up its own searchable database of the contents of its products, and offer that service to the public itself.
2. The publisher could create such a database, make available an API for accessing it, and charge Google money to include it in its services.
3. The publisher could decide that Yahoo does a better job of searching information, collect a fee from Yahoo (or not), and give Yahoo exclusive rights to create a database of the publisher's information.
4. The publisher could feel that databases were against the will of Allah and his prophets and determine that no such database will ever be created from its works.

On the other hand, Google seems to be choosing option #5 -- just copy the information into a database and offer it to the public without getting permission. Unfortunatley, under copyright law option #5 doesn't exist.

Except for scripting

[arrrrg]

...But when the effort of doing so exceeds the reasonable effort of walking into the library and scanning the entirety of said literary work, I would contend that Google has met it's burden...

The analogy breaks down when someone goes to copy a second book. Presumably, a second trip to the copy machine at the library will take just as long as the first. OTOH, once a hole is discovered in Google's book protection, it could be scripted/otherwise automated such that downloading their entire catalog takes only a single click. When I want to crack the CSS on a DVD, I don't have to reinvent the wheel ... I just do what any script kiddie does best. Now some kind of argument could be made about Google's due diligence to quickly find and close such holes once they are opened... I'm just saying that the issue isn't as simple as your comparison might make it seem.

BTW, I'm completely in support of Google Print, just playing devil's advocate here.

Just a curiosity thing

[jd]

I wonder if SuitSat did indeed have a problem with cold (hence the long absence of signal) but warmed up (the atmosphere must surely be still too thin to provide significant heating, though I may be wrong on that). I guess the reason for wondering is whether - as SuitSat begins the final stages of its firey plunge, but not after ionization blocks the signal - the signal might actually get louder than the spec implies. Presumably the power available would rise, as the battery gets hot, and NASA would have no reason to keep the brakes on - it's not like saving power would do any good at that point.

I guess it's interesting, in a historic kind of way, that it is a Russian satellite that is beaming signals for anyone on the ground whilst on a self-destructive trajectory, given that it is - in many ways - a re-enactment of Sputnik. The biggest difference seems to be that this one was launched from space rather than from the ground, but the intended signal and audience seem to be essentially the same.

I wonder if it'll have the same impact, though.

Re:I'm tired of these ham-handed appeals to morali

[aconbere]

But here again you are wrong. I am allowed under copyright law, and owner of a work to make copies of that work for my own use. If I buy a book I can certainly make millions of copies of that work and distribute them all over my own property. (The problems of course come when you give them to other people).

YET! We have a great deal of legal precedence that says taking snippets of already published books, and including them into an "index" is perfectly legal. This was done for centuries before the internet hit it big, and was a useful tool for researchers who wanted to know where every occurance of the word "god" appeared in Moby Dick (since the author didn't include an index).

So the question I ask is how in gods name is what the author of that index did (and has been legal for centuries) different from what google is about to do. Google is creating a service that says "here is where in a book the information you're looking for lies". It's up to anyone else to go track down the book and find it.

Besides let us not forget that the only really questionable chunk of books (to you) should be those books that are in copyright but out of print. These are the only books google isn't asking permision to include snippets for and the only group of books that anyone seems to be contesting googles stance on. All books out of copyright, clearly google can do whatever it wants. All books in copyright and in print, the solution is easy... ask the publisher. But we're talking about a group of books, and information where finding someone to ask permission is often times flat out impossible, and in these times google includes a modest snippet... and index if you will.

~ Anders

Re:Google Scholar levels the playing field

[Txiasaeia]

I do have access to MLA, JStor, and Muse, as well as ArticleFirst/PapersFirst, CBCA, ECO, InfoTrac, and the ProQuest databases. These were the first sources (after a token Google search) that I turned to. Your point is taken, but in this instance, Google scholar is the *only* resource that turned up any info about this particular artefact. If I missed something on JSTOR or InfoTrac, though, feel free to prove me wrong! Really!

Re:I'm tired of these ham-handed appeals to morali

[Raenex]

And what about books published 50 years ago, author dead, publisher bankrupt, but in copyright...

The answer to this is to fix the copyright laws, not give Google a free pass to break copyright. Copyright should require maintenance, so that abandoned works get put into the public domain. I also think something like 10 years should be the extent of copyright, not the insane amount of time it is now.

Re:Only for BMW?

[rm69990]

I was just dealing with Hauppage a few days ago. I have a TV Tuner card that is incredibly out of date (no longer being sold by Hauppage) that I have had for well over a year. I moved it to a new computer, and it wouldn't work. Sent them an email, and in less than a day, had a full response with full instructions on how to fix the issue.

Many companies do provide exceptional customer service. Telus, one of the ISPs in my area, has horrible customer service, so bad that I ditched their service. Shaw, the other major ISP, has great response times and support staff.

So I concur. It depends on the company itself, not on the size of the company. Shaw and Telus are both approximately the same size.

Re:If google can do it, then we all can do it!

[mean pun]

... In the USA. There are other countries. We even have scanners.