Google Subpoenas Microsoft & Yahoo

eldavojohn writes "Mercury News is running a story reporting that Google has filed subpoenas with Microsoft and Yahoo, in relation to their legal battles with publishers and authors. Google faces charges of massive copyright infringement surrounding its online book project. The company claims that Microsoft and Yahoo have taken the exact same steps in acquiring print-related rights. Google therefore wants to show that 'everyone is doing it.'" From the article: "McGraw-Hill Cos. and the Authors Guild, along with other publishers and authors, contend that a Google project to digitize the libraries of four major U.S. universities, as well as portions of the New York Public Library and Oxford University's libraries, ignores the rights of copyright holders in favor of Google's economic self-interest ... Is the library of the future going to be open? Or will it be controlled by a couple of big corporate players?"

Comments

man what a pain

[Anonymous Coward]

This first posting crap is barely worth it anymore.

Re:man what a pain

[Anonymous Coward]

This first posting crap is barely worth it anymore.

Strike "first" and you have got it right. Or is that more righter?

Re:man what a pain

[tritonman]

google only offers full copies of a book if there is no copyright. If you want copyrighted books all you have to do is find a torrent of the pdf.

Que: Your parents.

[fahrbot-bot]

Google therefore wants to show that 'everyone is doing it.'"

Well I guess that makes it OK. If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you?

Re:Que: Your parents.

[filtur]

Well I guess that makes it OK. If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you?
Only if google told me to :)

Re:Que: Your parents.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I guess that makes it OK. If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you?

As long as it was a lot of fun and I was caught by a bevy of beautiful beach volleybayll players, why not?

Re:Que: Your parents.

[Overzeetop]

Insightful, possibly, from a "what would your mother say" point of view, but not necessarily form a legal standpoint.

Common practice can become a part of law through judicial rulings, and in this case there is arguably a good reason for this database (seeing as how a database suh as this does not exist in the public realm, nor is there any real impetus to create one). Google would like the law to be interpreted for its intent, not necessarily the letter, and the believe they might have some footing.

Really, it's a non-issue, except there's gazillions of dollars of corporations involved, and those gazillions of dollars are usually fighting with one another.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[tallguywithglasseson]

If they can show the publishers haven't been enforcing their copyrights, then the publishers can't win an infringement judgement against them. At least that's what I've been lead to believe by IP lawers - if that's correct, the "everyone is doing it" argument, at least in IP law, is valid.

Unrelated to that, since when is Google not one of the "big corporate players?"

Re:Que: Your parents.

[LurkerXXX]

So, if they get a pass with 'everyone else is doing it', do I get the same if I want do download some songs or MP3s? Can I just tell the **AA that 'everyone else is doing it', and that everyone is a lot higher number than the folks google is talking about.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[thelost]

Google is trying to illustrate legal precedent, i.e. to show that other companies are actively pursuing the same goal as them. The comparison to jumping off a cliff is perhaps not apt or accurate.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[giblfiz]

Insightful, possibly, from a "what would your mother say" point of view, but not necessarily form a legal standpoint.

Well, actually there is a another legal angle that makes the "everybody else is doing it to" argument useful. If they can show something like selective enforcement (I don't know what the civil equivalent of this is, but I'm pretty sure that their is one) Then the suit would either need to be dropped or expanded to include MS, Yahoo and all the rest.

This would be to google's advantage because of the additional legal and political weight that the other players could bring to bear, and because it would make their opposition's case seem that much more absurd.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[Erwos]

"Google would like the law to be interpreted for its intent, not necessarily the letter, and the believe they might have some footing."

Unless I'm missing something, I don't understand how Google is somehow following the intent of the law. Copyright is a limited monopoly granted to the work's owner to control distribution (hence "copy" "right"). The idea is that they presumably may want to sell this work, thus making it profitable to produce more such works (which, presumably, is to the benefit of their fellow citizens).

By scanning all these works in, Google is taking away the work's owner's right to control distribution by making unauthorized copies. It seems clear to me, then, that they are not following the intent of the copyright system. I'm sure others will (violently) disagree with me on this point, but they aren't the only party here with a case.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

It would also dilute the damages that the other company is seeking, since damages should be finite.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[DragonWriter]

So, if they get a pass with 'everyone else is doing it', do I get the same if I want do download some songs or MP3s?

"Everyone else is doing it" is a rather simplified version of what Google will argue, which is likely to be something like (with evidence presented supporting each contention): 1) The use they are making of the work is to enable research, and 2) The method of enabling the research that they are using is widespread for that purpose (the part being characterized as "everyone does it"), and 3) The method of enabling research that they are using does not negatively effect, indeed positively effects, the market for and value of the material indexed. IOW, it will be tailored to address the purpose and nature of use considerations relevant to "fair use" under 17 USC 107. Good luck trying to assemble convincing evidence on those points to defend your song trading...

Re:Que: Your parents.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

So, if they get a pass with 'everyone else is doing it', do I get the same if I want do download some songs or MP3s? Can I just tell the **AA that 'everyone else is doing it', and that everyone is a lot higher number than the folks google is talking about.

Well, there is a lot wrong with your post. First, to my knowledge no one in the US has yet been sued for downloading songs, only uploading. Somehow, however, the MPAA has managed to get the term "downloading" into the public consciousness. I always look at these articles that say "downloading" and every time they then mention uploading in the actual case.

Next, "everyone doing something" speaks to part of one of the four fair use criteria for legal copying and republishing of works without a copyright holder's permission (effect upon the market). If you meet all these criteria (as Google seems to) then by all means you can tell the RIAA to shove it, although you may have to go to court to prove it. For example, if you download a song and burn part of it to CD and hand them out to your students as part of their homework on modern culture, you probably have met all the criteria for fair use. and whether the copyright holder likes it or not, they're going to lose if they take you to court.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[m0rph3us0]

Non-enforcement only applies to trademarks. Not patents, and not copyright.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

If they can show something like selective enforcement [...] Then the suit would either need to be dropped or expanded to include MS, Yahoo and all the rest.

How? You're going to force copyright holders to sue more than one infringing party at once? Surely going after one case to get the precedent is the oldest one in the book?

Re:Que: Your parents.

[Overzeetop]

By scanning these works in and offering them only as excepts as part of a search engine, they are indeed advancing the arts and sciences by facilitating research. They are not offering the entire (or even large chunks of the) work, and anyone who finds their reference must then go purchase the said work. They _are_ making a digital copy for the purpose of creating the search database, which I presume is the sticking point. However, if they can show that the common practive for scanned archives is to create the digital copying for search purposes, then they may pursuade the court that such a step is reasonable and necessary for the process. Since the search engine output does not (puportedly) violate the copyright, then the backend database required to run it should not be subject to tighter restrictions.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Common practice can become a part of law through judicial rulings,

This behaviour boils down to three businesses wanting to make more money, ignoring decades or centuries of background to the copyright principle that is even recognised explicitly in the Constitution of the US, in statute law in many other jurisdictions, and under international treaties. I don't think "everyone's doing it" is going to hold a whole lot of weight with any sane court here, no matter how expensive the legal teams.

and in this case there is arguably a good reason for this database (seeing as how a database suh as this does not exist in the public realm, nor is there any real impetus to create one)

Surely if there were no real impetus to create one, then either Google wouldn't be doing it, or public libraries wouldn't exist? However, we (the people of many countries) have explicitly decided through our legislative processes to recognise the concept of copyright, with limited exemptions. Public libraries may qualify as one such exemption. I'm not sure why a private, profit-making company should expect the same treatment, nor that what Google is doing is at all equivalent in its practical effects (particularly if it goes wrong) to what public libraries do with books.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[ThisNukes4u]

you're not a multi-million dollar corporation

Re:Que: Your parents.

[Ksisanth]

I haven't been able to use that line on my kid ever since the Turkish sheep incident. She just replies, "If the bodies are piled high enough to cushion my fall, then sure!"

Microsoft and Yahoo: soft, fluffy bodies?

Re:Que: Your parents.

[Monchanger]

I think my parent is talking about just the thing I was wondering - that there is a legal issue where if one does not protects one's property, certain rights over said property may be lost.

The example I know of happens in the United States. It goes like this: A man owns a piece of land including a private beach. He does not fence, sign or otherwise make public the fact that it is private. His neighbours use the beach to bathe and launch boats off of regularly for several years. The man one day fences off the lot. The neighbours sue. The case is ruled in their favor because he had not, in all those years, defended his property

IANAL, and have no idea what laws this relates to (I suspect this is related to the fact that only the neighbours seen to have incurred an "actual loss", which seems critical in the U.S. legal system).

The point is well made by my parent- by not suing the others, they are showing an ambivalence towards their property rights. I have a reservation to this argument, since they are in fact engaging in the protection of their property (against Google). It could be suggested that winning against Google provides them with a juicy precedent, with which they could cost-effectively sue the remaining websites (as opposed to suing them all at once). If I were one of our overworked judges, I'd appreciate them holding off.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[Overzeetop]

Surely if there were no real impetus to create one, then either Google wouldn't be doing it, or public libraries wouldn't exist? However, we (the people of many countries) have explicitly decided through our legislative processes to recognise the concept of copyright, with limited exemptions. Public libraries may qualify as one such exemption. I'm not sure why a private, profit-making company should expect the same treatment, nor that what Google is doing is at all equivalent in its practical effects (particularly if it goes wrong) to what public libraries do with books.

I guess I wasn't clear. There is no public push to digitize every (most) work of literature in a searchable database freely accessible to the public by a public entity with the funds to make this happen. Google want's to do it, and the result is likely to be free to use. There is no useful/convenient way to extract the full copyrighted text from the database, as they have proposed the search system to work (afaik).

The whole "everyone is doing it" sounds bad. If you change that to "common commercial practice" or "accpeted commercial operating procedure" it sound much better (though we still know what it means). Laws, much as you may not agree, are based on what the general society believes is the current "standard." As such, the voting rights have changed from "white male land owners" to "legal residents". Trademarks can be lost if taken into the common lexicon. Accounting practices change (though there are bounds at any given time). Google is playing within a grey area, and they want to show that "everyone else" believes that this grey area is closer to white than black.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[jslater25]

When my parents asked me the "If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you?" question, I would always answer:

Yes, because if everyone was jumping off a cliff, I would assume there was good reason to do so.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[DragonWriter]

Next, "everyone doing something" speaks to part of one of the four fair use criteria for legal copying and republishing of works without a copyright holder's permission (effect upon the market). If you meet all these criteria (as Google seems to) then by all means you can tell the RIAA to shove it, although you may have to go to court to prove it.

Market effect is one of four nature of use factors that 17 USC 701 says are to be considered in determining fair use, but you don't have to "meet" all four. The list is a non-exclusive list of factors the court is to weigh (it can, IOW, weigh additional factors not listed), not a checklist of standards where you have to meet some specified level on all four, and if you do, you are in the clear.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[chris_mahan]

It seems to work for the SOA-touting consultancies.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

...but you don't have to "meet" all four... ...not a checklist of standards where you have to meet some specified level on all four, and if you do, you are in the clear.

I was trying to simplify a bit, perhaps a bit too much. If you "meet all four" (your use is favorable in regard to them) then you're almost certainly in the clear. But yes, you're certainly right. The court could make up anything and declare a use to be unfair.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[fahrbot-bot]

I haven't been able to use that line on my kid ever since the Turkish sheep incident.

I wasn't aware that Turkish sheep had seen the South Park Cow Days episode. Good for them!

Re:Que: Your parents.

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay. The analogy you are making is technically fallible for reasons I won't touch upon.

Cases and rulings like these are very important; they set a precedent.

Google is very popular; what they do commands attention. One might speculate that because of their popularity they are picked on (that is probably how they feel).

My analogy will suck more than yours:

It is sort of like being the hot girl at the office.
"You are late!" Says Boss.
"So is everyone else." Says Hot Chick.
"So? You are more noticeable." Says Boss.
"This isn't quite right," exclaims Hot Chick.

SEE? I know what I'm talking about, here.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure. I don't want to be the last one alive on a lonely planet.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[Software]

The example I know of happens in the United States. It goes like this: A man owns a piece of land including a private beach. He does not fence, sign or otherwise make public the fact that it is private. His neighbours use the beach to bathe and launch boats off of regularly for several years. The man one day fences off the lot. The neighbours sue. The case is ruled in their favor because he had not, in all those years, defended his property

The term you're looking for is adverse possession, and the example you give would probably not be enough to make a claim under it (IANAL, of course). Furthermore, adverse possession is only a concept in real property law, not copyright law. In a sense, adverse possession applies to trademark law, but the rules are different.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I guess that makes it OK. If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you?

Not too swift in the logic department, eh?

Re:Que: Your parents.

[giblfiz]

How? You're going to force copyright holders to sue more than one infringing party at once? Surely going after one case to get the precedent is the oldest one in the book?

That's a very good point. I'm not even going to pretend to know, much less understand the law concerning this. The truth is that IP law is a big complicated hairy mess. I do know that in a criminal trial selective enforcement is a valid defense, and the state would be forced to either drop the charges or bring them against everyone.

Even if that were not the case here, I think almost the same benefit could be reaped. By demonstrating in a court that what they are doing is quite similar to the actions of other tech giants they still pick up allies. Its sort of like if their are 10 criminals hiding in a room and a lone cop wanders in but only spots one of them. If that one guy shouts "hey look at these other nine guys" suddenly its in all of their interest to overbear the cop.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[ajs]

Well I guess that makes it OK. If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you?

You have your analogy wrong.

Here's the (rather strange) result of combining cliff-jumping with the current situation:

"If there were an established sort of cliff jumping that had been ruled legal in many long-standing rulings, and everyone else interpreted a new kind of cliff jumping as legally identical to that previous sort, would it be legal to engage in?"

The answer is: maybe. Caselaw is tricky, and there's always litigation risk, but establishing that there's a common practice based on existing caselaw significantly strengthens any claim that your actions are not purely self-interest, and that rather you have acted in accordance with the law as best it could be established WITHOUT a trial. THEN, you get to decide what the court thinks about the interpretation of case law and how reasonable it is to up-end an existing business model.

Claims that libraries (even Internet-based libraries) will end the profitability of publishing are pretty thin. We have hundreds of years that demonstrate that owning a physical book is worth money to a lot of people, and they will go out of their way to do so instead of just checking it out of a library.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[KDR_11k]

Selective enforcement does not apply to copyright since a copyright holder can determine who is infringing and who is tolerated and that's his right. The government cannot simply decide that a crime is tolerated unless they tolerate it for everyone commiting it since that'd be a big loophole for tyrants and corruption/nepotism. A private entity can choose at will whom to press charges against but the government cannot as it doesn't press charges for its own gain but does so in the name of society.

Trademark enforcement is important since a trademark is lost if it enters everyday speech (like photoshopping or googling) but AFAIK it's not automatically lost if you fail to protect it against misuse, it has to be actually adopted by the public as a generic term. E.g. the GIMP could feasibly say their program can photoshop images (if they had enough money for lawyers to defend that right) since that's a commonly accepted verb now. Of course they can't call their application Photoshop since that's not a generic term for image manipuilation software yet.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[DragonWriter]

The term you're looking for is adverse possession,

No, I think in the case of the beach access, where you aren't claiming to have acquired title to the land but merely a right to use the land that the holder of the title cannot prevent you from exercising, its actually easement by prescription, not adverse possession, though the two are very similar.

Though, in any case, you are correct that there is no direct analog to the applicable real property law in copyright, so the analogy doesn't really work legally, though of course one might argue that the same principal underlying prescriptive easement might argue for the adoption of a similar approach in copyright law.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[DragonWriter]

Other companies pursuing the same goal (unless there has been litigation about that pursuit) does not demonstrate legal precedent. What Google is doing is marshalling evidence for one piece of an argument that their use is within the "fair use" exception to copyright under 17 USC 701.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[HuguesT]

However the publishers may argue, amongst other things, that by doing their book indexing, Google are depriving the copyright owners of some control over their work without their consent. From what I've seen the scanning and OCR of non-authorized material is complete and thorough. There is also the point that you raise, that basically a digital, complete, unauthorised copy of all the disputed works is currently present on Google's servers. The fact that it is not available to the general public is mostly irrelevant. Also Google is using this data for profit (adds) without compensation to the copyright holders. This goes very much against both the spirit and the letter of copyright.

The copyright holders may also argue that web search is quite different. Web pages reachable by spiders who respect robot.txt files are inherently public and meant to be indexed. Book pages are not, to my knowledge, in any way comparable.

The fact that the Google indexing is opt out whereas all the other indexing services are opt-in (amazon, B&N, etc) makes it very different from the other offerings.

The fact that Google is not willing to switch to opt-in (in effect this would very much reduce the value of their offering vs. all of the competition) makes it clear they want to strongarm the publishers into the Google business model.

In my opinion Google is a little overconfident in this matter. At any rate it will be interesting to see what happens.

Re:Que: Your parents.

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Not very hard to recast it.

1) is tenuous, but you could say that people who really care about the music will buy a legal copy instead of downloading it from some random server, which is likely to have a poorly-digitized version of it.
2) For every song I share, you can already find it on the Internet. If it takes you a couple more seconds of searching, that's irrelevant to the case.
3) Some studies have shown that people are more likely to buy an entire CD or whatever after listening to the song online. The assumption that people would buy CDs if it weren't for these songs is merely "common sense" (supposedly), not anything rigorously justified.

More importantly:

4) I'm not making any profit. I don't care who takes the song from me. I don't notice it. If anything, it uses some of my bandwidth allotment. Google is most definitely hawking Book Search as a service they intend to profit from somehow.

So shouldn't sharing songs be more valid than Book Search?

Re:Que: Your parents.

[Software]

>of course one might argue that the same principal underlying prescriptive easement might argue for the adoption of a similar approach in copyright law.

Agreed, but since easement by prescription is (as your link shows) something that's codified in statue, I think that a judge applying it to copyright law would be guilty of legislating from the bench.

Although in the beach access case, I wonder how "uninterrupted" would be applicable here. I suppose if you'd built a dock on your neighbor's property, that would count as uninterrupted use, but launching kayaks or swimming would not happen continuously.

Everyone is doing it. That's a teenage excuse.

[Anonymous Coward]

So what? Everyone at the party was doing it. Why am I being punished? Hey google. Try not commiting copyright infringement instead. And you want to buy Youtube. What the hell is wrong with you, kid?

Pointing fingers

[theneb]

your doing it, they are doing it, so we are doing it. I guess thats ok. Great way to set an example. Seems like google is becmoing more and more like the old microsoft. Sadly at least microsoft had entered the monopoly phase in the business process when they were the "big evil guys".

I vote for . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

I vote for Big, Corporate Players. It's the only way I can ever get screwed.

Amazing!

[Erwos]

I must have missed the bill where the "everyone is doing it" defense was made valid. Pirates of the world, unite!

If my buddy and I violate someone's copyright, and the copyright holder sues me and not him, guess what? That's his or her decision. Their copyright does not somehow become "less valid" because of whom they take legal action against, or do not take such action against.

Now, for _trademarks_, it's a different story. But, clearly, scanning in entire books has far more to do with copyrights than trademarks, at least in this case.

Re:Amazing!

[dontbflat]

This is not about violating Copyrights. Google is saying that yahoo and MSN have legal rights to these books and so should we. It says in the article "According to filings in U.S. District Court in New York, Google wants Yahoo and Microsoft to provide descriptions of their projects,as well as documents that show they have legal rights to the books that are included in the project".
All google wants is a fair chance at being able to scan those books that Yahoo and Microsoft have already gotten permission for. We are not talking about violating Copyrights.
Who knows. This may turn into a new form of discrimination where publishers can say "we dont like you so No you cant use my books....but we like this guy" Personally, I say if you make it open to one....you must make it open to all.

Re:Amazing!

[geekoid]

actually, everyone is doing it can be valid. Especially if their goal is to get the judge to look at the intent.

Persoanlly, I find that the recent copyright law ruling does not in anyway reflect how the people want to use it, or expect it. It is woefully outdated for todays world.

Not that it should be abolished, just changed. I find these chalenges to copyright based on intent to be a good thing.

Re:Amazing!

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I must have missed the bill where the "everyone is doing it" defense was made valid.

For copyright it does make a difference because the laws are based upon the effect of an action. Fair use allows people to copy works without the copyright holder's permission in certain instances. So far, the legal precedent pretty much is all in Google's favor, but because the effect of their action on the market is one of the four things considered for fair use, showing that the market in general is already doing this is an important legal point to shut down any arguments about that provision.

If my buddy and I violate someone's copyright, and the copyright holder sues me and not him, guess what? That's his or her decision.

You've got this all wrong. This is to determine if they are violating the copyright. An analogy is firing a gun. Sometimes it is target practice and legal and sometimes it is murder. Google copied works. Now the law is determining if that copying is illegal.

But, clearly, scanning in entire books has far more to do with copyrights than trademarks, at least in this case.

Yes, this is a copyright case, but not all copying is illegal and some is specifically designated as legal. For example, the courts have ruled that it is perfectly legal to copy every image you can find on the internet, and store those images, for the purpose of providing a thumbnail image of those images for profit. That is because what is being sold is meta-data about where you can find an image, not the images themselves. The courts have also ruled that making low quality copies of porn images and making them available is illegal, because the intent was for people to just look at the images and the effect upon the market was to deprive the copyright holders of business.

What Google is doing in almost every way is similar to the former. They copy an entire work, but only for the purpose of providing an excerpt and "selling" information about what books will be helpful. Now, if they were to image and post certain works, like dictionaries or recipe books, with excerpts that are all a person wants, they might be in trouble, except for the fact that in order to claim damages a copyright holder has to have notified the violator of the infringement, and Google already removes any book at the request of the copyright holder.

Re:Amazing!

[just_another_sean]

You know I try to avoid pseudo-modding with my comments. But the pp is just about as far opposite of offtopic as you can get. He clearly and insightfully replied to the gpp and explained his perspective on google's motive.

Anyway, you made a compelling argument that made sense to me. Before reading your post I was kind of on the "why the heck would google do something like this" side of the fence myself.

+1 Insightful...

Re:Amazing!

[silicone_chemist]

Personally, I say if you make it open to one....you must make it open to all.

I don't know much about copyright law but it seems to me that the books are already available to anyone if they travel to the library. Why shouldn't the same availability be made digitally. Google/MS/Yahoo are providing a service by scanning them into a database and storing them on their servers. I'd be happy to pay a nominal fee for the service to obtain the book digitally rather than pay a nominal fee to operate my vehicle and travel to the library. Do public and University libraries pay a fee for each book they offer? If so, Google/MS/Yahoo should pay the same fee and be entitled to operate a digital library.

Re:Amazing!

[planetmn]

The library purchases a book from the publisher, so in effect pays a fee for the book. The book is a physical item and as such, one copy of the book can only be used by one person at a time. So there is a method of licensing or rate-limiting built into the system inherently. But with a digital library, unless DRM is thrown into the mix (and we all know how well that goes over on Slashdot), there is no way to license or rate-limit the viewing of the digital book. The difference being that a library loans a book, and in effect what you want is the ability to buy a digital version of the book (which can be done already in some instances).

-dave

Re:Amazing!

[planetmn]

This is not about violating Copyrights. Google is saying that yahoo and MSN have legal rights to these books and so should we.

Just because you have legal rights to property that you have paid/bartered/negotiated for or otherwise obtained, does not mean that I nor anyone else have a legal right to the same property.

This may turn into a new form of discrimination where publishers can say "we dont like you so No you cant use my books....but we like this guy" Personally, I say if you make it open to one....you must make it open to all.

This discrimination happens currently, and at least in some cases, is needed. If you wanted to make it that anything available to somebody, must be made available to anybody (even at equivalent pricing, etc.), you're in for a world of problems.

Companies could not donate software since by making it available to one group for free, they would have to be able to make it available to everybody for free. Companies could not limit resellers/distributors to only those that they feel meet their requirements for customer service or volume or any other metric.

Protected classes exist to protect from discrimation due to certain factors, but they only apply to the protected classes.

-dave

Re:Amazing!

[NubKnacker]

What does this "Open Content Alliance" mentioned in the article have rights too? Does it have the rights to the libraries of the 4 universities that google wants to digitize? If so, why shouldn't google be allowed to do so when the OCA said that they would allow access to all search engines?

I'm trying hard not to fall into the "M$ and Yahoo are evil" trap but it does seem like exactly that. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Yahoo and MS paid the OCA large sums of money to delay access to other search engines just so they could be the first ones with the content. This is the IT industry after all, those who come out first with their product almost always have the lead and find it easier to maintain it.

Re:Amazing!

[KDR_11k]

except for the fact that in order to claim damages a copyright holder has to have notified the violator of the infringement, and Google already removes any book at the request of the copyright holder.

So the RIAA would have to send out a notice "Stop sharing our songs" before they can sure someone for damages? The various copyright holders have to go over to the guy selling CD-Rs with warez on them, tell him to stop and can only sue if he doesn't? That kind of system would make abuse way too easy, just infringe, if someone notices stop and you're free to go. The notice isn't required (unless you mean the court serving), it's nice to send a C&D letter beforehand but it's not necessary. You can start right away with a lawsuit but usually that only happens when you're trying to take money from someone or think he's acting in bad faith.

Re:Amazing!

[blackest_k]

but google are not loaning books, what they are doing is presenting a selection of pages from books and if i am not mistaken offering links to where you can buy the book.
It is basically enough to give you an idea as to the contents style and potential usefulness of a particular book.

if you find something useful, then you can order it or perhaps request it from your local library maybe eventually some enterprising companys will let you download a pdf of the book letting you get on with reading it while waiting for the paper version to arrive or be printed or to be back in stock...

of course this means all the out of copyright, creative commons and other freely available books become widely available too, maybe this is what the publishers fear vastly increased competition for eyes.

in some ways it is the same fears that riaa and mpaa fear from p2p the ability for consumers to make an educated informed choice about what to buy and what to avoid like the plague.

Thats what really makes me angry the pretext is copyright but in reality its control, control of what we read what we think what we should or should not have access to.
Lets be honest here accessing snippits of a book online only increases the chances of a sale being made.
so the only thing being lost here is control of access to the published works out there. All of a sudden a small publishing house has as much presense as a multinational.
  I really am on googles side on this one or perhaps I should say google is on my side and yours.

Re:Amazing!

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

So the RIAA would have to send out a notice "Stop sharing our songs" before they can sure someone for damages?

Not in all cases, but in many, cases especially when the copyright is in question, as in the case of really old books. The truth is, since Google provides a means by which anyone can opt out of their service, the burden of proof then shifts to the copyright holder to prove that they lost money. Since this is really hard to do, especially from a republished excerpt, there is no way any judge in his right mind would award any damages for this. Or so it was explained to me by a lawyer I know. I was a little toasted at the time, so the details are hazy.

Seems to me...

[Otter]

I suppose this is welcome news to all the fourth grade lawyers out there, but it seems to me that if Google needs a subpoena to discover that Microsoft and Yahoo also do something that Google issues loud press releases about, that largely justifies singling Google out for lawsuits.

Re:Seems to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm confused. I have asked you numerous times to shut your fat fucking mouth yet here you are posting on and on.

NO ONE GIVES A FUCK WHAT YOU SAY.

Someone needs to key your Porsche you fucking jerkoff.

Re:Seems to me...

[sgtrock]

Actually, it's more that Google needs to demonstrate in court that they are simply providing a fair use service similar in structure to that provided by their competitors. I'd say the odds are very high that Google will win this one hands down because they don't allow for the full download of material. They only allow people to search the material and read a small sample.

Frankly, I still can't figure out why the publishers are so upset. Don't they understand that Google's actually doing them a favor?? This is free publicity for their wares, for heaven's sake!

Nice try, Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

But there is a HUGE difference between acquiring copyrighted material and distributing it.

I actually think Google has backed themselves into a corner. By limiting the number of pages of a book you can view, they are pretty much admitting that it's illegal.

Re:Nice try, Google.

[DoorFrame]

Eh, not really. They were sued for copyright infringement for making thumbnail copies of images in google search and they were cleared because they only made thumbnails and were providing a new and useful service. I'm sure they'll make the same argument for books. We're only providing a portion of the book and then telling you how to get the full thing.

Re:Nice try, Google.

[svyyn]

By limiting the number of pages of a book I can view, Google is providing me information under fair use (their assertion). Distributing the entire book (which they do not do), would be illegal. The groups bringing the suit, though, are saying that several highly relevent pages from the book is too much for it to be fair use.

Re:Nice try, Google.

[kfg]

By limiting the number of pages of a book you can view, they are pretty much admitting that it's illegal.

Taking a couple pounds of cheese off the store shelf is illegal. Taking a couple of the sample cubes is not.

KFG

Re:Nice try, Google.

[bgalbrecht]

By limiting the number of pages of a book I can view, Google is providing me information under fair use (their assertion). Distributing the entire book (which they do not do), would be illegal. The groups bringing the suit, though, are saying that several highly relevent pages from the book is too much for it to be fair use.

The books scanned from the libraries only display 3 line snippets if they're not public domain, copyrighted books with full pages visible are books where the publisher gave permission, and are not involved in the lawsuit.

The gist of the lawsuit is that even though the snippets returned by Google's search would be fair use, the electronic copy created in order to make the search is an unauthorized copy, and therefore taints the end use.

slogan change

[joerdie]

mabey google should change their slogan from "do no evil" to "do less evil and tattle on everyone else when we get in trouble."

Oh good

[geekoid]

Now we can read all the posters wildly misinfomred legal opinions.
Sweet.

Re:Oh good

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we can read all the posters wildly misinfomred legal opinions.

I wouldn't recommend that. We might get sued because of casus belli and be subject to post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Actually. . .

[smooth wombat]

it probably has something to do with Google buying YouTube.

Re:Actually. . .

[joe 155]

It's a shame that your story was rejected, although I think that it is a little offtopic to mention it here, I thought you might like another source on it - the BBC has this; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5414432.stm - I'm not sure that the two things are related, but if this is a start by google to delegitimize all copywrite then I'm all for it!

Re:Actually. . .

[smooth wombat]

The story may come up in a few hours but for a story like this I give the editors a decent amount of time to post it from someone else before I put it in my journal. I figure if I've seen it, then someone else must have also submitted it.

However, since I had been on MarketWatch's page and saw the announcement come across the wire, I can't imagine someone else submitting the story first.

Then again, Zonk is on duty and he rejects a majority of my stories so maybe it's just a grudge thing.

Buy old media to shut it up

[peter303]

Google certainly has enough cash.
The optical fiber cos bought the phone cos.
The dot.coms bought the networks.
Rockefeller bought his competitors.

Re:Buy old media to shut it up

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

These publishing companies are freeking dinosours. This might be a bigger contribution than anthing google has done so far.

Culture should be free

[kike]

... ignores the rights of copyright holders in favor of Google's economic self-interest

No. The public has also the right to digitized, freely accesible publications. And since these books are already freely available in public libraries, why shouldn't they be on the Internet?

Re:Culture should be free

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think they are avialable for free in the public library.

First, the library bought the book, thus the author gor reimbursed at least once. Second, you ar enot allowed to 'keep' the library book forever, if you were to do so, the library woudl buy antother copy adn the author woudl be compensated once again.

Google never compensates the author in any fashion.

Re:Culture should be free

[jedidiah]

It's not even about "freely accessable publications". This isn't like Google going all project Gutenberg or something. This is only about Google and the given Universities being able to do searches against books: a valid & reasonable fair use of the books in question.

          This kind of thing really isn't even unprecedented. There are similar dead tree references of this sort for other types of dead tree works. The book industry is just trying to be control freak pricks and trying to extract more revenue where they deserve none.

          The federal judges should see this and just say: Piracy? What Piracy? Get the H*LL out of my courtroom and stop wasting my time.

Re:Culture should be free

[cfulmer]

Absolutely not. In the US, at least, the public DOES NOT have the general right to digitize copyrighted works, whether they are freely accessible or not. Remember all those signs you see on library photocopiers? There are some 'fair uses,' but these are limited. For example, you can record a TV show for the purpose of watching it later. But, you can't check a book out of the library, photocopy it and return the original.

Re:Culture should be free

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I'll accept your argument, as long as you get Google to agree that should any digitized copy of a work in their system leak so that more than small excerpts are available on-line, Google will immediately (a) compensate the copyright holder of that work at the same high rate of punitive damages that other copyright violations such as through P2P fall under in the US, and (b) shut down their system, since any argument about being fair use because is does no harm to copyright holders will have been completely annihilated. Fair?

Re:Culture should be free

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I'll accept your argument, as long as you get Google to agree that should any digitized copy of a work in their system leak so that more than small excerpts are available on-line, Google will immediately

...not Google's problem. The very same argument was proposed when Xerox machines came into use. The maker of a tool is not responsible for misuse of that tool. Sorry, but Google already goes well beyond their required duties in this regard.

On the other hand, should you be able to prove that Google Books is negatively effecting the market for these books because they are leaking, then Google may well lose the right to republish excerpts in this way, under the fair use doctrine.

...shut down their system, since any argument about being fair use because is does no harm to copyright holders will have been completely annihilated.

The law actually addresses this, but only in terms of the market for these works. If you can prove the market is negatively affected by Google's use, it speaks to the validity of their fair use. Of course since none of the copyright holders can demonstrate any such thing they haven't even bothered making this argument in court, as far as I know.

Re:Culture should be free

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

What makes you think they are avialable for free in the public library.

Probably te same thing that makes him think they are available for free at Google books. They republish excerpts in response to a search, not entire works.

Re:Culture should be free

[Anonymous Coward]

"...not Google's problem. The very same argument was proposed when Xerox machines came into use. The maker of a tool is not responsible for misuse of that tool."

Didn't Napster try that argument and lose?

Re:Culture should be free

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Didn't Napster try that argument and lose?

Napster lost a case of "contributory copyright infringement." In order for there to be a contributory copyright case, there has to be a clear cut case of regular copyright infringement, which they are facilitating. They were found to have provided tools, and been aware of specific instances of infringement, and to have the technology to stop them, but did not because the infringement benefitted them. Further, the courts agreed that their use would negatively impact the market for said works.

This differs from the Google case in that, there is no case of regular copyright infringement that anyone is aware of, there is no evidence that they are negatively effecting the market, and they are only republishing excerpts of the works. They seem to meet all the fair-use criteria in accordance with previous legal precedent. I hope tht clarifies the issue, as much as possible given the mess that our laws are currently in.

Re:Culture should be free

[KDR_11k]

The difference is that Xerox is only distributing a tool, not any part of the copyrighted work. The tool by itself is not infringing. The data Google sends out is potentially infringing and if their service could be "convinced" to give the user a copy of the entire book Google has created an illegal copy. Xerox didn't make the copy, Google did.

Re:Culture should be free

[bgalbrecht]

...And since these books are already freely available in public libraries, why shouldn't they be on the Internet?

The publishers argument is that the public libraries paid the publisher for a copy of the book, and Google didn't. Those books in the library are only freely available because members of the community supporting the library (i.e., taxpayers, alumni, students) loan them out (or make them available for general use within the library).

The publishers aren't objecting to Google putting up public domain books, they're objecting to Google borrowing copyrighted library books, scanning them and then putting snippets up on the Internet. The case boils down to whether the Supreme Court will consider Google's actions fair use (and regardless of the original rulings, it will be appealed up to the Supreme Court). Personally, I think the publishers and Author's Guild are trying to stop something that will be ultimately advantageous to them, but I'm sure they're trying to establish boundaries that are favorable to them (and, of course, to extract money out of Google).

Re:Culture should be free

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The data Google sends out is potentially infringing and if their service could be "convinced" to give the user a copy of the entire book Google has created an illegal copy.

In that case Google has built a tool and someone else used it to create a complete copy of the work, from their database. In which case, Google's copy, in their database would probably no longer enjoy fair use protection and they'd have to remove it upon request of the copyright holder (which they do anyway).

Xerox didn't make the copy, Google did.

You misunderstand, making a copy is almost never illegal. Republishing a copy is often illegal. This is why all the lawsuits about downloading mp3's you see turn out to really be about uploading mp3's. So in that case, the user is making the copy, from the tool Google provides, opening Google up to potential contributory copyright infringement charges. It would never stick though.

Re:Culture should be free

[DragonWriter]

You misunderstand, making a copy is almost never illegal.

Actually, no, copying a work is an exclusive right that is part of copyright (the first of the listed exclusive rights, see 17 USC 106), hence the name "copyright". Making a copy of a copyrighted work without permission is often illegal, though (as it usually is not a direct source of harm), it rarely, by itself, provides grounds for imposing any substantial remedy. The harms, and thus most of the available remedies which justify the hassle of filing of a lawsuit, come from distribution.

Also, if someone makes a million copies of a copyrighted work and doesn't distribute them or provide others access to them, chances are no one is ever going to know, even if they would go through the hassle of a lawsuit in that case.

Re:Culture should be free

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The maker of a tool is not responsible for misuse of that tool

That's not always true, either morally or legally. Technology is neutral by default, but building and supplying a tool that you can reasonably know will be used to commit illegal acts is dodgy. In my hypothetical scenario, where the condition is that a work has leaked, then Google would be in exactly that position.

On the other hand, should you be able to prove that Google Books is negatively effecting the market for these books because they are leaking, then Google may well lose the right to republish excerpts in this way, under the fair use doctrine.

Exactly. That's all I was saying, really.

Of course, there are two kinds of copy being made here: Google's own, internal copy of the complete work for their index, and then any excerpts (or leaked full works) that Google supplies to others. Both of these are infringing by default, and the onus is on Google to demonstrate that they should qualify for an exemption such as fair use.

Right now, Google could make a reasonable case that the fair use criteria will be satisfied. (That's not to say their opponents can't make a reasonable case the other way: are Google really claiming that they have perfect security in today's IT world, Your Honour?) However, if anything ever leaked, it would suddenly become very difficult for Google to justify either form of copying under fair use rules, since one is there to facilitate the other, and the other would demonstrably be damaging.

Library of Congress

[maelstrom]

"Is the library of the future going to be open? Or will it be controlled by a couple of big corporate players?"

I'd rather see the Library of Congress do something like this instead of having it controlled by the publishers or Google or Yahoo or Microsoft. One would be very foolish to have anyone entity control this, and I'd rather it be free to all and not plastered by Adsense everywhere.

Re:Library of Congress

[boyfaceddog]

Why? What is inherently superior obout the LOC? Please don't think that the LOC wouldn't charge a fee, lock out users, censor texts, or anything any other publisher would do. Also, why wouldn't the LOC be susceptable to the same copyright troubles as Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo!?

Just becasue the LOC is part of the government doesn't give it the right to ignore the law. That's the president's job.

Re:Library of Congress

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Just becasue the LOC is part of the government doesn't give it the right to ignore the law.

Actually, the law grants exceptions specifically to the Library of Congress. Before the 70's, in fact, they were required by law to be provided with 2 free, perfect copies of all works to be copyrighted. Sadly, that was before the laws were critically mangled by lobbyists.

Re:Library of Congress

[bayankaran]

library of the future...

Libraries are already closed. Try selling an item - book/DVD/video - to any public library in North America.

Re:Library of Congress

[DragonWriter]

Before the 70's, in fact, they were required by law to be provided with 2 free, perfect copies of all works to be copyrighted.

Last I checked, the deposit requirement was still in the law.

Re:Library of Congress

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Last I checked, the deposit requirement was still in the law.

I believe it changed the same time the law switched to an automatic opt-in. I'm almost certain no copies of my books were sent, but the copyright is still enforced.

Re:Library of Congress

[DragonWriter]

Okay, now I had to go back and check. The deposit requirement still exists in the law(see 17 USC 407)—indeed, its theoretically broader than it used to be, since the prior limitation that it only applied to works published with notice of copyright has been removed, so theoretically anything subject to copyright must be deposited—but there is a provision which allows classes of works to be exempted by regulation. The copyright office page on Mandatory Deposit provides a general description of the current operation of the requirement, and regulations lay out a dozen exemptions, (catalogs, greeting cards, on-line databases, etc.) but in general the rule remains alive.

Which corporations would those be?

[Hoplite3]

Is the submitter upset at the amount of knowledge and culture McGraw-Hill controls, or the amount of culture Google will soon control? Both are corporate entities and not private.

On the other hand, this experiment with copyright is getting out of control. It's difficult for modern works to achieve classic status. Just last week I was reading that many anthology creators pick and choose their contents based more and more on what rights they can afford. Some modern authors might make a splash, but they're pricing their work out of range for posterity.

You could say that the market will sort this out -- but it's a tragedy what happens in the mean time. Good works will moulder and die as publishers and author's families try to pimp them for the final dollar. All I can think is, doesn't it make more sense to SHORTEN copyright periods as technology improves rather than to extend them? A book can be published, shipped, promoted, bought, and read the world over in a few years now rather than a decade.

Rich get richer

[pembo13]

Neglecting the fact that Google is already 'rich'. Copyright, in its current implementation seems to be in place simply for the rich to get richer. Yet most Americans are in the middle class. So I think its fair to assume that most US-Slashdotters are in the middle class. So how is it that laws, continued by rich, enforced by order of the rich, and that benifit mostly the rich get so much support on /. ? Does the money earned from copyright go directly back to the economy? I was of the (possibly incorrect) understanding that it just goes into the bank account of the rich.

Re:Rich get richer

[Anonymous Coward]

If Google didn't exist, perhaps the middle-class would be getting richer. Why? Because then maybe we'd all be paid for writing blogs, recording podcasts, and putting up our photos. AOL wanted it that, and if things went just a little right back in the 1995-1999 span, we just might be there.

But now, everything on the Internet is expected to be free.

Second point: I disagree with the notion that copyright only benefits the rich. The only people copyright benefits are the creators of content. Higher the demand for the content, the higher the pay.

Re:Rich get richer

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The only people copyright benefits are the creators of content.

You're mistaken. Copyright often benefits the distributors of content more than the creators. This is especially true in industries like the music business where a cartel controls distribution. Most artists lose money on copyrights. They actually have to pay to be distributed, more than their copyright makes, and make up the difference doing live shows and selling trademarked goods. And in general, the creators of copyright are dead long before their copyright expires, which means it sure as hell isn't benefitting them unless there is a way to take it with you.

Re:Rich get richer

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

So how is it that laws, continued by rich, enforced by order of the rich, and that benifit mostly the rich get so much support on /. ?

Partly I suspect because those promoting the current copyright regimes pay a lot of astroturfers. Also, in general, I think support is the result of propaganda that tricks people into thinking that copyright is a natural right and because the topic is somewhat complex and most people don't care to take the time to understand it, so they believe what they hear.

Re:Rich get richer

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the money earned from copyright go directly back to the economy? I was of the (possibly incorrect) understanding that it just goes into the bank account of the rich.

It does. It never gets spent, or invested, or otherwise utilized to fund more economic activity with the goal of making even more money... it just gets socked away as if it never existed.

Re:Rich get richer

[pembo13]

I guess you don't understand directly vs indirectly.

Re:Rich get richer

[KDR_11k]

What would you rather see instead of the current copyright system? I don't mind it. I don't see what we're losing because of it. Oh, so we can't get all works for free, only the works the author wanted to be free? Does that hurt us somehow? If you want to enrich the public domain with your works you can still do that. Noone's stopping you from creating works and releasing them into the public domain. If someone wants to have money or not distribute his works at all that's his freedom of choice. After all, we don't expect people to let anyone into their house and we see it as their freedom to restrict access, not a loss for other people who are denied access to that house.

Tell me one thing...

[grumpyman]

If Google uses the digitized books for self economic interest is not ok, I wonder what you guys think about peer-to-peer swapping of digitized books? No more 'economic benefits', is that ok?

Re:Tell me one thing...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

If Google uses the digitized books for self economic interest is not ok, I wonder what you guys think about peer-to-peer swapping of digitized books? No more 'economic benefits', is that ok?

You're probably thinking about the fact that non-commercial copyright infringement was legal up until the 70's and many people think it still is. Legally, it is not nearly as simple as you seem to think. It is not whether or not Google is making any money that is under consideration, but whether their way of making money is negatively effecting the market for the works they have copied. Also, that is only one of several criteria under consideration. For example, teacher playing a movie for his students may mean one of those students does not go out and buy it, negatively effecting the market, but that particular aspect is outweighed by the fact that it is being used for educational purposes.

In the case of Google books, Google is not profiting by giving away the content of the books, but by providing a service that lets others find the books they want. The information they are profiting from is actually meta-data about the books. Legal precedent thus far is that you can copy entire works for the purpose of presenting portions of that work that allow others to intelligently find and choose between different works.

Re:Tell me one thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! And then Apple can come out with an iRead.
Might need a bigger screen for that one.

Re:Tell me one thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. That sounds vaguely reminiscent of lending a friend a book once you're done with it.

Quotations

[Per Abrahamsen]

Danish copyright law allows quoting "according to good practice". Very vague. Maybe US law has something similar.

Re:Quotations

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Danish copyright law allows quoting "according to good practice". Very vague. Maybe US law has something similar.

US law considers four criteria for fair use of a copyrighted work, without permission. One of them is "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole." This basically means you can republish quotes so long as they don't comprise a significant portion of the whole work. It is a bit more complex than that, but the upshot is Google is probably in the clear.

Dawn of the Information Age

[headkase]

The way people interact with Information needs to be completely re-drawn. I believe what is needed is compulsary licensing of most information. Your Internet bill just had a $25US fee attached to it. And in return you get all the downloads you can suck through the tubes. Seriously. Video, audio, books, and software. Your fee is divided back to the copyright holders. Then through regulation mandate that all browsers need to include some kind of bit-torrent like functions to increase the reliability of information access as it would be distributed (vs the current centralized points of failure). Fixing copyright law to reflect the Information Age would make the symptoms of the industrial to information conversion sickness (such as DRM) disappear. Compulsary licensing is the key - like what the Library of Congress evolves into in Snow Crash. Derivative works could explode in this kind of environment - imagine the increased revenue to copyright holders as portions of their works are remixed later on (such as Anime Music Videos).
If you could, what would you do to fix copyright?

Re:Dawn of the Information Age

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this isn't a bad idea, but would be hugely difficult to distribute equitibly to the copyright holders. It might be a nice compromise to allow individuals low-price access to some of the larger "license" systems already in place. (BMI, ASCAP, major holdings for movies, etc.) Then, set them up like iTunes so everything is tracable and the best content creators get rewarded properly (i.e., get more of your $25 than joe-schmo who wrote the crappiest kid's story ever.)

Re:Dawn of the Information Age

[zoftie]

I think the idea there is with licenced copyrights for mixing in, cannot be controlled as effectively as pieces of paper standing on a shelf in a bookstore or a library.
As we reeling into the new age people still trying to hang on to bits of old one, and they stand to loose. Information flow is like a light if you stop it from flowing, it disappears like a light. I suppose there should be a new term, on mutablility of the infomration and how successful the original bit is, in speed and amount of mutation on the original.
2c.

Re:Dawn of the Information Age

[east coast]

If you could, what would you do to fix copyright?

At this point? Nothing.

I'm sorry but I disagree with your idea here. Copyright gives an artist a right to determine how (and if) his/her work will be distributed. Calling up a flat fee and telling an artist that they do not have rights to the distribution of their work is nonsense. And ultimately who's to decide who gets what fee for what work?

It seems that one of your problems is that government currently has say in copyright and that eliminating current copyright gets rid of so many issues surrounding it... but who controls the end product? If artists are compensated by some media fee (call it a tax, really) that means that it will be regulated by government forces. This isn't far off of copyright as it is. And what happens when the estate of Hunter S Thompson isn't willing to settle for the government mandated fee and determines that "Screwjack" is worth 500 USD a copy? Not all media can be judged by those "high up" without infringing on the artists rights in some way.

the idea of a flat fee distribution system where the artist has no ability to control their works and gets reimbursed by a mysterious body that they have no say in is, frankly, a shitty deal for the artist.

but hey, if you can get people to follow your lead... BTW: If you get this to go through the "high priests of media" should go under the name "the temple of syrinx" just to make sure no one gets edgy about their real role in who distributes what media and at what cost to the artist. And better yet: what DOESNT get distributed, citing a lack of interest.

Re:Dawn of the Information Age

[headkase]

Absolutely Auditing would be a complicated system. But computers are very good at automation. I guess the first thing that would need to be established would be political. Nations would have to impose their borders around their information. At the border, a router wouldn't let someone outside of the nation download the latest brittney song because their nation doesn't (yet) pay their fees. For distribution, decentralization is superior for reliability when contrasted against a centralized architecture - but - you can mix the two a bit with centralized index servers that are government run as DNS servers are today with distributed transfer and storage of bit-torrent; so like Napster. Centralizing the index allows the controller to filter what content is permitted and track usage. So you could filter out the nasties and pay everyone equitibly. Now to make this work all other forms of unauthorized distribution such as gnutella/fast track/etc. would have to be absent (against a law) for the system to work the best.

Re:Dawn of the Information Age

[headkase]

At this point it may be the best deal they'll ever get.
The concept of "Mine" fades off into the distance I guess.

Re:Dawn of the Information Age

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

At this point? Nothing.

Are you saying you're unaware of the massive problems caused by our current copyright system, including the massive destruction of works and the government enforced prevention of old works from being revived?

Copyright gives an artist a right to determine how (and if) his/her work will be distributed. Calling up a flat fee and telling an artist that they do not have rights to the distribution of their work is nonsense. And ultimately who's to decide who gets what fee for what work?

With this I agree. A flat rate removes all the advantages of capitalism. It is unworkable in the long term.

It seems that one of your problems is that government currently has say in copyright and that eliminating current copyright gets rid of so many issues surrounding it... but who controls the end product?

Ummm, copyright is an artificial government granted right, not a natural right. It is the government restricting free speech for the greater good. The government not being involved would mean there is no copyright. I don't think most people want it abolished, just severely reformed to benefit the people.

Not all media can be judged by those "high up" without infringing on the artists rights in some way.

Sadly, right now much of the availability of copyrighted works is determined by those "high up" in corporate distribution houses. Media executives are notoriously terrible at determining what should and should not be available to the public. They tend to minimize risk, which means shutting down anything abnormal. But almost all great works are abnormal. Most are not recognized as great for some time. With current copyright, that usually means never. Heck look at the top 10 TV shows of all time. How many were cancelled after their first season, or only saved by some weird chance?

With current copyright law, that pretty much means those works vanish from both the market and the public consciousness, and never get another shot. One of the two major reasons for copyright was so that works wouldn't be kept secret and would eventually become available to the general public. Now, copyright never expires and the last copy of works often vanish without it ever being available to the general public. My favorite example for shorter copyright durations is "It's a wonderful life." It's a classic, right? It was a box office flop and was tossed in a warehouse after the initial showings. If copyright then was as it is today, no one would have ever heard of this film. But no, the copyright expired, and PBS aired it. It became an instant classic and part of our culture (and somehow became re-copyrighted through legal shenanigans). For the last 30 years, nothing has come out of copyright and all indications are nothing may ever do so again. That means they will probably never get a chance to be recognized as a classic or great work. Why? What is the benefit of this to society? Why are we giving up our free speech for this?

Copyright durations should, if anything, be shorter than they originally were, not longer. For the vast majority of works, most of the money is made in the first few years. So make copyrights last only a few years and creators will have only slightly less incentive to create them, but society will benefit from having all of them available. Classics will no longer vanish and we will have a real, evolving artistic heritage again, instead of this stagnating run of remakes we have now.

Re:Dawn of the Information Age

[east coast]

Why are we giving up our free speech for this?

And how does your right to free speech apply? No one is taking away your right to free speech. Or do you consider the inability of an artist to regulate their own work, regardless of your desire to rip off their creations, as free speech?

I love how so many at slashdot don't give a crap to the rights of the artist and only consider their own rights. Rights work both ways. You may not consider it a "natural right" but I'm sure the creator of these works feel otherwise. If you were making a living off of these works I bet your rhetoric would do a 180.

And don't start on this "but big corporations own it". For the most part, works owned by corporate interests were sold to them or hired out. This is a part of the law of copyright and essential to having paid artists. Without this, as you said, we "remove[s] all the advantages of capitalism. It is unworkable in the long term."

Re:Dawn of the Information Age

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

And how does your right to free speech apply? No one is taking away your right to free speech. Or do you consider the inability of an artist to regulate their own work, regardless of your desire to rip off their creations, as free speech?

You sing a new song. I hear it and like it. I sing it too. The government grants you some of my money in compensation, taken at gunpoint if necessary. That is a restriction on my freedom of speech.

Copyright is a limited restriction (government sponsored) on free speech (a natural right). The only justification for that restriction is the benefit it can bring to society. The framers of copyright law in the US attempted to maximize the benefit to society and get as much for society as possible. Give copyright holders the minimum restriction to free speech necessary to motivate them to create more works, for the least amount of time that will do it. Don't take my word for it, there are some very good discussions of the topic by the founding fathers that express it in that same way. Several of them (Jefferson and Franklin I believe) were opposed to copyright at all fearing it would become like the great publishing houses in Europe (which is very similar to what we have now).

In fact, the constitution only grants the right to enforce copyrights for a limited time and for the purpose of encouraging science and useful arts. The supreme court actually ruled that our current copyright laws do not do that in their opinion, but because of the wording it is not their place to judge the intent of congress. As a result even though the laws don't do what they say, so long as congress claims they are trying, but incompetent instead of malicious, the supremes can't strike the laws down.

I love how so many at slashdot don't give a crap to the rights of the artist and only consider their own rights. Rights work both ways. You may not consider it a "natural right" but I'm sure the creator of these works feel otherwise. If you were making a living off of these works I bet your rhetoric would do a 180.

This is funny because I'm a professional writer, with numerous published works and copyright provides the majority of my income. My own self-interest, however, does not blind me to the nature of human rights, nor to the adverse effect these laws have on our society.

Free speech is a natural right. The fact that you don't understand that copyright is not, and is in fact a restriction on free speech is sadly understandable. Several powerful interests have been spewing propaganda to convince you for decades that it is a natural right.

For the most part, works owned by corporate interests were sold to them or hired out. This is a part of the law of copyright and essential to having paid artists. Without this, as you said, we "remove[s] all the advantages of capitalism. It is unworkable in the long term."

Not at all, without copyright there are still other ways to profit from works, within capitalism. It is only socialist concept of flat rates for all that removes those benefits. But I think copyright can be a boon to society, if it is properly implemented. It currently is not even close in the US. Did you read my examples of why it is not beneficial? Do you care about the thousands of books, TV show, songs, games, movies, and other works that will never reach the general public and never become popular because copyright forbids it, even for works whose author's are dead (and hence can't be motivated) or don't even know they have the rights to a work. I doubt any dead authors are going to get up and write something new so why are their works not free to all? How does society benefit by those works being restricted by whomever own the rights?

If we had laws like we do now, 2000 years ago, would we even have any great literature? What about the rights of the people who wrote the Bible? Shouldn't we stop all reduplication of it until the descendants of those people can be located and properly compensated for each copy? Does

Re:Dawn of the Information Age

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

One more thing, I noticed your sig:

Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.

Maybe for an example of the problems with copyright you might read up on the problems regarding HP Lovecraft's works and copyright disputes after his death, with legal battles stopping or delaying the publishing/republishing of many of his stories and letters. In fact, if not for the generosity of distant descendants of his aunt, his works would still be languishing, many unpublished and copyright would not begin to expire on any of them for another year. His works survived 100 years due to the careful stewardship of two other authors, but who is to say how many of his contemporaries' works have had the last copy crumble to dust, or ruined in a flood, or tossed in the trash over the last 30 years?

Re:Dawn of the Information Age

[east coast]

Maybe for an example of the problems with copyright you might read up on the problems regarding HP Lovecraft's works and copyright disputes after his death, with legal battles stopping or delaying the publishing/republishing of many of his stories and letters. In fact, if not for the generosity of distant descendants of his aunt, his works would still be languishing, many unpublished and copyright would not begin to expire on any of them for another year.

The problem with Lovecraft's works had more to do with Lovecraft not preparing his estate properly prior to his death. Lovecraft went about the handing off of his rights to his works in a way that wasn't legal and binding. As much as I hold his works high and as sympathetic as I am to the Old Gent the bottom line is that Lovecraft's works never came close to being "tossed in the trash" since most of the dispute had to deal with who had the right to publish. Also note that even by contemporary law a large portion of Lovecraft's works are public domain. All of Lovecraft's works will be PD in 2007.

His works survived 100 years due to the careful stewardship of...

Lovecraft was 16 years old 100 years ago. His earliest surviving work is probably Dagon or The Tomb. Both 1917. Again, most of Lovecraft's works ARE public domain. The last of them will be PD by the end of next year, if not sooner. Let's not make crap up to support your argument.

Re:Dawn of the Information Age

[east coast]

This is funny because I'm a professional writer, with numerous published works and copyright provides the majority of my income.

Yeah, I always here stories like this. I'm calling you out! PROVE to me that this is true. You can make up any crap you want and get away with it. PROVE IT.

And if you have such faith in this why are your (supposed) works under the protection of copyright?

Re:Dawn of the Information Age

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Yeah, I always here stories like this. I'm calling you out! PROVE to me that this is true. You can make up any crap you want and get away with it. PROVE IT.

No. My anonymity is an important part of the reason I post here. Without it, my comments can cause public relations problems for my employer(s) or lead me to have to censor myself to maintain good relationships in the industry. In any case, the fact that I'm a writer does not have any bearing on the validity of my points. It is ad hominem. I just thought I'd point out your prejudice and assumption that you know what profession other people have. You don't. You're just making assumptions that fit with your belief system in an attempt to come up with an emotive reason to dismiss the arguments. Look for a logical reason.

And while we're at it, how about addressing some of my points. Do you think the current system is beneficial the way it is implemented? If so why? What makes you think all these works disappearing is a good thing for society?

And if you have such faith in this why are your (supposed) works under the protection of copyright?

A lot of my works benefit from copyright. A lot do not. Many are made on commission, for a select audience. All of them are copyrighted because everything is copyrighted by default in the US. And as I said before, I'm in favor of copyright and think it can be beneficial to society. I'm opposed to the current, unreasonable copyright laws. Do you know what percentage of my income is generated by copyrights lasting longer than 2 years? Maybe 1%, if that. So where is the benefit to society for making them last so long? Would I stop writing or creating artwork if that 1% of my income was lost? No. Would I create fewer works? No, in fact I might make more since I'd be motivated to make up that lost income.

For that matter, if copyrights were abolished would I switch careers? Nope. I'd probably do more commission work, and I'd use novelty to make money from others via advertisement. Tune in next week to see the next chapter of my exciting new novel, and remember ad blockers make baby jesus cry... seriously people, don't make me put the whole thing in a flash presentation!

You really need to think about this issue again, after tossing out your presuppositions. Man was not born with the inherent right to force others not to copy him or his creations. Copyright is only justified as a bargain between society and a creator, and if it is not one that benefits society, there is no justification for it. As it is currently implemented, it is harming society, as even the supreme court stated in their review.

So tell me. What is your position. Do you believe copyright is benefitting society? Why?

Re:Dawn of the Information Age

[east coast]

I just thought I'd point out your prejudice and assumption that you know what profession other people have. You don't. You're just making assumptions that fit with your belief system in an attempt to come up with an emotive reason to dismiss the arguments. Look for a logical reason

Yeah, and I've also seen enough of people claiming that they aren't what they claim they are to give their argument legitimacy. If you felt so secure that your "logical reason" would be a good enough argument on it's own you wouldn't have mentioned your "profession".

Point blank; I don't believe you. I've already answered why I I feel the current system is beneficial, artists rights and control of their own works. I don't think there needs to be reason beyond that. As far as works that "disappear"... This happened long before such a thing as copyright was even considered. Copyright has less to do with it than what bad artistry does.

A lot of my works benefit from copyright. A lot do not. Many are made on commission, for a select audience.

Oh, selective audience. So you should have the right to control your own work but in your utopia that wouldn't be true? You keep asking me the same questions, how about not skirting mine?

All of them are copyrighted because everything is copyrighted by default in the US.

My understanding is that you can open any work you own to public domain.

Do you know what percentage of my income is generated by copyrights lasting longer than 2 years? Maybe 1%, if that. So where is the benefit to society for making them last so long?

Well, since I know nothing of your supposed works I can't say much for them, but I'm damn sure Pink Floyd has made a massive amount more off their works after the first two years. I have no real doubt of this actually. So long term, enduring art certainly does benefit. Maybe all this art this is going "missing" has no long term value and they're not really missing at all but "misallocated" due to a lack of interest. You know, sometimes the public loses enough interest in a work that it will never be seen again, it has nothing to do with the evil copyright lawyers at the top.

Would I create fewer works? No, in fact I might make more since I'd be motivated to make up that lost income

Let me get this straight, 99% of your works value is made in the first two year, but if you lost control (and 1% payment) after those two year to the public domain you'd write more to make up for it? I'm calling either bullshit or a serious logic flaw. I'm sorry, but it's becoming harder to take you seriously.

For that matter, if copyrights were abolished would I switch careers? Nope. I'd probably do more commission work, and I'd use novelty to make money from others via advertisement. Tune in next week to see the next chapter of my exciting new novel, and remember ad blockers make baby jesus cry... seriously people, don't make me put the whole thing in a flash presentation!

Uh, yeah. If your works were that profitable you would be doing that today since you'd be willing to right more for that 1% you were talking up. People already don't give enough of a damn to pay artists when they do offer extras (real CDs with artwork, lyrics and everything!) what makes you think people aren't going to just rip you off? The only advantage the printed word has is that too many of us are still too use to flipping pages to want to read off the screen. Once the younger generations get more and more use to reading from a monitor or a better technology (e-paper style) appears then the paper printed word will be dead.

You really need to think about this issue again, after tossing out your presuppositions

I have considered this issue. I don't see a problem with it now. I have different values... we're humans. Get use to it.

Copyright is only justified as a bargain between society and a creator, and if it is not one that benefits society, there is no just

Re:Dawn of the Information Age

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

If you felt so secure that your "logical reason" would be a good enough argument on it's own you wouldn't have mentioned your "profession".

I mentioned it to point out that you are being irrational, a point you seem unconcerned with. Even assuming I'm lying about my profession because I really want to impress some anonymous person on Slashdot for some reason, it does not have any bearing on the fact that you are not using reason to determine the truth, but have already made up your mind and are now looking for ways to justify that belief. Prejudice is irrational. You don't know have any way of knowing what I do for a living. You made an assertion about what my profession is, despite this. If incontrovertible proof of your own irrationality is not enough to make you rethink your opinions, then nothing I say is likely to. I'm not sure there is any point to continuing this conversation.

I've already answered why I I feel the current system is beneficial, artists rights and control of their own works.

I'm not sure I can figure out what your belief is based upon the jumble of your previous posts. Why don't you just state it clearly for me.

As far as works that "disappear"... This happened long before such a thing as copyright was even considered. Copyright has less to do with it than what bad artistry does.

The fact that things that were not beneficial happened in the past does not make the beneficial in the present. I've already rebutted the argument that only "bad" works disappear, which is patently not the case.

Oh, selective audience. So you should have the right to control your own work but in your utopia that wouldn't be true? You keep asking me the same questions, how about not skirting mine?

Some of my works, especially commissioned ones are considered trade secrets and protected as such. Others are of use only to a limited portion of the population, in a fairly small industry. As for a "utopia" we should all be striving for the best possible laws, most beneficial to society, should we not? As I said, I think a well crafted copyright would be a good idea and I'm in favor of copyright, if the laws are reformed to benefit society. I don't, however, delude myself into thinking I have some entitlement to copyright to restrict distribution of what I make and I already explained why it is not necessary for me to profit from my craft.

My understanding is that you can open any work you own to public domain.

For those I have not transferred the copyright to, I certainly could, but to what end? Why should I put any works into the public domain that I do not need to? It's like asking a corporation why they don't stop using tax loopholes to avoid paying taxes. It is wholly beside the point of whether or not the law should be changed to close those loopholes and make copyright benefit society.

Well, since I know nothing of your supposed works I can't say much for them, but I'm damn sure Pink Floyd has made a massive amount more off their works after the first two years.

I'm sure they do. The question, however, is would they have made their works if they did not gain that benefit. Also, we must consider the common case, not the exception. The vast majority of works do not make money after the first few years, and are not even available for sale, yet they are denied to the public. Why?

One of my proposed reforms is that when a work is no longer offered for sale, at a reasonable market value, that work immediately enters the public domain. This removes no incentive for the creation of works, but greatly benefits society.

Maybe all this art this is going "missing" has no long term value and they're not really missing at all but "misallocated" due to a lack of interest.

Sure, maybe it all sucks. Who would you rather have making that decision, society as a whole, or entertainment industry executives?

People already don't give enough of a damn to pay artists when

Re:Dawn of the Information Age

[east coast]

How does this in any way invalidate the points I made?

Ah, so there we are. I'm explaining my position and you're taking it as me trying to attack you? No wonder you don't seem to understand my posts, you're looking for a vendetta. Please, move along.

Yeah, you considered that you don't want to change your opinion, even though it stinks. Go ahead and keep supporting the castration of our artistic heritage because you assume the crap that is popular is the best of what we should be passing on to our children. You'll forgive me for my opinion that what's happening and your perceptions are a pile of feces.

Laughable. Do you really think "our children" (which is a sad excuse for any legislation getting passed) will take the time to constantly go over the past to find what was good? If they do they're wasting their time. It's unfortunate that you're willing to sell of artist rights in the name of keeping your little nostalgic way of life alive.

Disney makes more money on toys than movies and they're sure as hell not going to just walk away from all that money, even if they had to give the movies away to promote the toys. The same goes for television and many other copyrighted works.

You're still neglecting the artist's rights when you mention this. This isn't only about profits. Infact, little of my position is about profit. And I, for one, don't think that bands should have to tour to make money unlike most anti-copyright zealots.

I'm sorry if your sense of entitlement is such that you think you writers should be guaranteed a profit by law, but most people don't agree with that.

Actually, I think that if you're using an artists work they should be paid, if their work sucks than no, they don't deserve to be paid. If you don't understand this system I'd say you have a problem. The reason "most" don't feel like this? Because they're cheap. I has nothing to do with heritage. They just want to take without giving.

I have however, given up on trying to use reason to convince you. You are obviously making decisions based upon emotion instead.

Emotions? You're the one crying "what about the children". You're a joke. You've either not read my posts or you're just going out of your way to say dumb shit like this.

Don't be surprised if I don't bother replying to your subsequent posts.

That would only matter to me if you were stating something of value.

Point of view

[RingDev]

Is the library of the future going to be open? Or will it be controlled by a couple of big corporate players?

I think the person who said this has missed the boat. The library is already controlled by corporate players, they are called publishers. Hence the reason it costs $250 for a text book on network security, but only $40 for a book on network security.

The question now is WHICH corporate players will control the library? Will print publishers continue to hold sway, or will the digital revolution move the power to Google and other online and on-demand print services?

-Rick

Unintended benefit

[cascadingstylesheet]

>It's difficult for modern works to achieve classic status. Just
>last week I was reading that many anthology creators pick and
>choose their contents based more and more on what rights they can
>afford.

Oh no! We won't be able to replace $TIME_HONORED_CLASSIC with
$MODERN_TRIPE?

I'm ordering some more genuine Mickey Mouse stuff right now, along
with a nice thank you note ;)

Re:Unintended benefit

[wirelessbuzzers]

Oh no! We won't be able to replace $TIME_HONORED_CLASSIC with $MODERN_TRIPE?

Are you suggesting that the author of every great work died before 1936?

What about Joyce? CS Lewis? HG Wells? JRR Tolkien? Cather? Adams? Orwell? TS Eliot? Woolf?

Some of their works are already classics, but there are surely dozens of other works, by these and other authors, that won't become classics because it is difficult to distribute them.

The Future of Libraries IS open

[unity100]

There are just personas and groups that still cant grab the way things going and fight against it.

Everyone is doing it

[thorkyl]

So if they can show everyone is doing it, and thus get away with it, then all I have to do is show "everyone" is downloading mp3's and I can get away with it.

Ohh wait, im not a big company, different laws apply to me

Re:Everyone is doing it

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

So if they can show everyone is doing it, and thus get away with it, then all I have to do is show "everyone" is downloading mp3's and I can get away with it.

No, if you can show you meet the balance of the fair use criteria for UPLOADING mp3's, including that you're not negatively affecting the market, then you can "get away with it." As far as I know, it is still in limbo if downloading copyrighted mp3's is illegal at all and I've yet to see a court case challenging it.

Offtopic?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Anyone care to explain why this is not mod abuse?

The Corporations, man

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just another example of Bush and his Big Library friends railroading the working class little guys, like Google, into shackles of having to respect property rights. I say throw off your shackles, comrades! We deserve free stuff!

Library's content

[nsundeepreddy]

Half of all these libraries will be filled with the the legal documents of these subpoenas and related paper work of this law-suit. I am not sure if this is worth the effort. hmph...

Could the government do it?

[aplusjimages]

What if the government took over the project and said they would digitize all books and make an online national library. Would they be able to? I think an online national library would be a great idea. I understand the concerns of publishers and authors, but if I wanted I could go to the library and get their books for free anyways.

Someone could write a program that the user downloads that would allow them to preview a certain page for a limited time. maybe each person would get library credits. Or maybe the database of books could only be accessed at librarys.

Re:Could the government do it?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

What if the government took over the project and said they would digitize all books and make an online national library. Would they be able to?

Yes, and this just what other countries have been doing.

Or maybe the database of books could only be accessed at librarys.

Technically, I think schools can legally do this right now, if they are so inclined. In the UK I think there are 4 or 5 libraries each of which gets a copy of every copyrighted work. The library of congress got these copies too, until they changed the law in the 70s.

birth of a new **ia???

[Anonymous Coward]

so will the new publishers/ authors interest cartel be called piaa (publishing industry association of america)? or maybe bwaa (book writers association of america? if such a group came to form and used the same tactics that are used by the other **ias it will be the end of librarys everywhere. what? you're loaning the books out for free? preposterous!! i demand that you close down this den of thievery! everyone must go to a store and BUY it if they want to read it!

Necessarily

[Ungrounded Lightning]

If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you?

Of course.

Because if I didn't, "everyone" wouldn't have jumped off the cliff - violating the premise.

Re:Necessarily

[wboelen]

-1 Smartass

Re:Necessarily

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Yeah, that's what mom said, too. B-)

10,000 lemmings can't be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

That reminds me of a usenet signature as above.

When big money are doing illegal things, there would be changes in the law, right?

Argument in Google's favor.

[Anonymous Coward]

This site has an interesting argument against the copyright lobby and
in Google's favor: http://questioncopyright.org/node/4

Google doesn't use paper

[flyingfsck]

The question revolves around the fact that a digital scan of a book, isn't a copy of a book, since it isn't paper. This is similar to taking a photo of a statue, which doesn't infringe copyright of the statue. Same with taking a photo of a painting, it doesn't infringe copyright, since a photo isn't a painting.

Re:Google doesn't use paper

[RexRhino]

I agree with you that a photo of a painting or statue should not infringe on copyright... but unfortunatly it does. Try taking a picture at the Louvre... or manufacturing a product with a photo of the Lone Cypress (which is a tree, it isn't even a sculpture) on it... and see how far it gets you!

Wait...

[kirun]

So, Google starts scanning in books without asking permission, and the copyright owners get angry. Yahoo starts a rival process where they ask permission, Microsoft joins in, so Google is now trying to see if they didn't really ask permission? Presumably, Yahoo thinks they got permission, and the people whose books Yahoo are scanning think they gave it. So, even if it turns out that they mucked up the agreement, and technically Yahoo doesn't have permission, or they are accidentally scanning some books outside the agreement, how does Google hope this is going to provide an excuse for deliberately doing it without permission?

Google doing the right think

[Anonymous Coward]

Google doing the right think, scanning all the world information, papers and books.
trying to stop that is against the advance, against science, and againts technology ....

Re:Google doing the right think

[kfg]

trying to stop that is against the advance, against science, and againts technology ....

. . . and against the intent of copyright.

KFG

But posting off of this one will help me...

[cultrhetor]

To insert my opinion when I play latecomer. I think the /. version misses the point. Libraries won't be controlled by big, corporate lawyers. They're already controlled by a big, bureaucratic government. Sometimes, that can be even worse. I'm not sure that aggregating library DBs will "infringe" on any copyright, it may increase people's visiting the public library, which would cost book publishers big $$ when people realize what crap they're putting out for free, rather than paying $7.99 for a paperback toilet wipe.

Unrelated?

[NubKnacker]

I fail to understand what the following lines in the article mean :

Still, Google's requests may be hard to fulfill. According to librarians participating in Google's project, the legal status of some older books can be hard to determine.

Why should google's request be hard to fullfil? All Google wants are the documents related to the right that have been given to MS and Yahoo.

Crock of Shite!

[oh_my_080980980]

"In an interview with the Mercury News last year, Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, said he was concerned how accessible a digital library run by Google would be.

``Is the library of the future going to be open?'' Kahle said. ``Or will it be controlled by a couple of big corporate players?''"

WTF! Yeah and I guess Microsoft and Yahoo aren't big corporate players!!

For the morons on this list, the reason Google subpenaed Microsoft and Yahoo is they want to know under what ways are those two allowed to publish material on the internet and Google is not. Basically if all companies are doing the samething then all not doing anything illegal.

But the biggest point is that Google is not giving anything away for free. They are allowing people to search abstracts of books! Jesus christ, that's not illegal and that's very helful for somone doing a literature search. Hell how is that any different from what Amazon does now!!

You are mistaken...

[xiphoris]

You're mistaken. Copyright often benefits the distributors of content more than the creators.

In the short term, you are correct; but lawmakers consider both the short- and long-term.

In the long-term, copyright provides an incentive for people to create new things, and that benefits everyone in society.

Arguably, without copyright we would have many fewer interesting works as part of our culture.

Re:You are mistaken...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

In the short term, you are correct; but lawmakers consider both the short- and long-term.

Ha ha ha ha ha! Whew! That's a good one. You did not notice the perpetual copyright we now endure, and the ongoing disintegration of works created over the last 30 years? Lawmakers consider lobbying dollars and have happily sold out our future so certain companies can make tiny percentage more money with less competition.

In the long-term, copyright provides an incentive for people to create new things, and that benefits everyone in society.

Interestingly, even the US supreme court disagrees with you and states that in their opinion the current copyright laws are obviously not benefitting society. Only through a technicality of the wording have they not been struck down (Congress claims they are merely incompetent not being malicious and the supreme court does not have the authority to judge that they are lying).

Arguably, without copyright we would have many fewer interesting works as part of our culture.

Arguably with copyright we would have a lot more interesting works as part our culture. Have you heard the story of the movie "It's a Wonderful Life?" Sit down and take a load off and I'll spin you a tale. It was crap. It was a huge box office flop. It was tossed in a warehouse and left to rot. It was thoroughly unprofitable. There it sat until the copyright expired, many years later. PBS, strapped for cash, aired it near the holidays and it became a classic overnight. Like most great works, it was not immediately recognized as such. Under our current laws, that would never happen. No one would have ever heard of the movie because no one would have though it might make money for them.

No work has entered the public domain in 30 years and it seems unlikely that many ever will. In 130 years or so they'll probably extend copyrights again and if they don't most works will have been lost entirely or DRM will prevent them from playing. Under our current system the criteria for being available to the public is some executive's guess about profitability and that usually means anything unusual is out. Almost every one of the most popular TV shows of all time was either cancelled in its first season or saved by some weird chance.

So you're sitting here and telling me you really think the fact that 99% of the works for the last 30 years being unavailable to the public benefits society? I'm sorry, but you're nuts. Motivation is great and all but a 2 year copyright will work fine as motivation as 99% of works make most of their money in the first 2 years. And money is not even the biggest motivator for most artists. And finally, there are plenty of ways to make money without copyright, especially in this day and age of technology. Half the money made by Disney, or more comes from trademarks, not copyright. Do you really think if copyright went away entirely or was limited to 2 years, they'd just close up shop and go home, leaving those billions for someone else? Not a chance.

The damage to society our current laws are doing is more severe than the benefits it is bringing. We need to fix it. If we can't fix it, abolishing it entirely is better than what we have now. I say this as someone who makes most of my living writing and selling copyrighted works.

Re:You are mistaken...

[xiphoris]

You make the mistake of assuming I endorse the copyright system as currently implemented by our government... I don't.

The idea of copyright -- as it was originally envisioned and implemented, was fine. Copyright would expire after some reasonable time. Things have gone downhill from there because corporations in the US are in bed with the government. And that sucks.

But the fact that the system is broken doesn't mean it's bad in the first place. Copyright is not the problem -- lobbying of the US government is the problem.

I would be very happy if copyright lasted 5-10 years.

To answer your question: if copyright went away entirely, I do think that the number of works created would decrease. Simple economics would tell you that. The idea is that, from some neutral state (w/o copyright), adding copyright creates incentive, which means that more works will be created. I don't want copyright to go away entirely, and I don't want it to be anywhere near how it is now. But I definitely think it should exist in some reasonable form.

Re:You are mistaken...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Copyright is not the problem -- lobbying of the US government is the problem.

I never said copyright was the problem, only the current implementation of it.

To answer your question: if copyright went away entirely, I do think that the number of works created would decrease. Simple economics would tell you that.

That is immaterial because the number of works created is not a goal by itself. For example, if we could pass a law that would double the number of works created, but half of them would be buried in a vault and encrypted so no one could ever see them, and another portion of the works would cost a billion dollars to view, have we benefitted society? No.

The vast majority of copyrighted works are not available for sale and certainly not at a reasonable price a normal person could afford. What does it matter if their are twice as many if 99% are unavailable to society? And make no mistake, that is the current situation.

We not only need shorter copyright durations, but we need to make sure that all works are available or it does not matter how many there are. To this end, I propose that in addition to shorter copyright lengths and return of the reference copy requirement in a usable form (no DRM), we also need a provision to prevent copyright from being a tool of censorship. Any works that are not available to the public at a price comparable to the market value for that type of work, should enter the public domain, regardless of the copyright duration. If the copyright holder is not selling it, then copyright provides them with no motivation and hence should be immediately revoked.

An Unintended Consequence

[kthejoker]

The ultimate irony will be if Google wins all of these cases brought against them by libraries and newspapers, and then someone simply comes along and pilfers all of Google's data for it.

What's to stop Yahoo! from simply scraping all the book images and running their own library? Google can't claim copyright foul, has already supported fair use of Internet pages made publicly available, and in general has forwarded a philosophy of "what is presented to the public is free for the taking, repackaging, and selling."

I hope somebody just comes in and rides their coattails for some quick bucks. Then at least we'll be able to see for certain how Google feels about their own practices.

Re:An Unintended Consequence

[bgalbrecht]

The original images Google made available were really low quality, about 75 DPI black and white, and the Open Content Alliance's images will be about 400 DPI color (Yahoo! and MSN are contributing to OCA). Volunteers at Distributed Proofreaders http://www.pgdp.net/ have been scraping images from Google since they started the Google Books (Library) project. Now that Google makes PDF files with higher resolution black and white images available, the images work better with the OCR programs used by the DP volunteers, but it's still not as high a resolution as OCA's. Google has made over 100,000 public domain books available in full view mode, but quality control has been rather spotty. Most books with illustrated plates are missing the illustrations and/or pages around the illustrations.

Any scraping done by a competitor would need to have people doing some portion of the scraping, as Google either requires CAPTCHA responses or blocks all access from IP addresses/ranges where they detect signs of scraping.

What about the Web Search?

[jjjack]

What I find so strange about the whole fuss over Google Book Search is that they're not doiing anything different than they do with their web search. As you should know, if you know anything about copyright, just about anything you create is automatically copyrighted (of course there are some things that are excluded). Certainly, webpages fall under this category. Thus essentially every webpage on the internet is automatically copyrighted. When Google crawls the web, they add updated pages to their cache. In doing so they are creating a copy of the page itself with which to analyze links, etc, as well as offering it up to the world under the "Cached" link. Site owners have the choice of opting out of Google's system, though few choose to do so. This is exactly what they are doing with the book search. The only difference is that website owners don't haved an industry front group to fund lawsuits.

Now, one could argue that the opt out system is not in keeping with the Copyright Act, whereby creators should choose to allow their use of their works, not have to make a point of disallowing it. If that argument holds in the Book Search case, however, then it certainly should hold for Google's web search.

Yes and No

[dave1g]

While im not in love wiht the current state of copyright in this country. You understanding that the money goes into the bank is correct, however that does not imply that that money doesnt go back into the economy. Banks are not the space between the matrees and boxspring to shove your money there for later. Banks take deposits, and in return give out interest to the owners of those deposits. In return the banks get to loan out the money or invest it in some other way, and give the little guy(who is not rich) who needs a car loan, home loan, or a small business loan a chance to make it in the world by amortizing those start up costs of car/home/business capital over the course of the loan + some interest. That money is very much in the economy. Unless of course the rich actually put their money under their bed. Something tells me that they dont do that.

So you are right and wrong.

Lawsuit doesn't refer to your example

[bgalbrecht]

I actually think Google has backed themselves into a corner. By limiting the number of pages of a book you can view, they are pretty much admitting that it's illegal.

Google Books is comprised of two sources, Google Library, which scans books and displays the entire book if it's public domain, or a 3 line snippet if not, and Google Publisher, where the publisher provides the source of the book (well, Google might do the scanning with the permission of the publisher), and the publisher tells Google what percentage of the book is viewable. Any book found in Google Books that has a limited view is available by permission of the publisher, and therefore not applicable to the suit. Only books with a snippet view are of concern with the lawsuit as they are the only ones where Google might need permission from the copyright holder.

Digital Public Library ended in 1920's.

[openright]

With the copyright extensions in 1976 and 1998, no new significant works have entered the public domain since the 1920's.

But, there is still a demand for public access to information, so government libraries license back limited access to the information monpolies that it created.

But, with in the current state, digital information is only available as DRM data, which is far from public access.

Luckily, The internet and Open Source stepped in where the public domain stopped. There is open source software, some open source books and large self creating open source works like Wikipedia.

If one was to create a true public digital library, it would have only: public domain works which stopped in the 1920's and open source works.

What would *I* do?

[tacokill]

If you could, what would you do to fix copyright?

Well, for one thing, I sure as hell wouldn't turn the "media" industry into a government regulated industry, like you suggest, where some un-elected body gets to dole out the compulsary licensing money to the "copyright holders". $25 would VERY quickly turn to $30...and on and on it would go. Before you know it, we'd have big wankfest's here on /. whining about our yearly fee for content and how expensive it has become over the years.

No, compulsary license is not the way to fix copyright law. You don't fix copyright by creating MORE bureaucracy.

I opt out of having to opt out

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that telling other people that you are going to infringe and if it's to be stopped, the violated must "OPT OUT" is inane and insane. I am going to hit everyone, and if you want me not to, please opt out, otherwise I claim I have implicit consent to hit you? That's just crazy talk.

Re:I opt out of having to opt out

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I think that telling other people that you are going to infringe and if it's to be stopped, the violated must "OPT OUT" is inane and insane. I am going to hit everyone, and if you want me not to, please opt out, otherwise I claim I have implicit consent to hit you? That's just crazy talk.

Except punching is not copyright infringement. A better analogy is another government enforced right, property ownership. If you go on someone else's land without permission, you may be trespassing. But if they don't opt in by placing "no trespassing signs" the property owner cannot claim damages. They can still tell them to get the hell off their property and don't come back, but they can't tell them to stay off all the property they own, wherever it happens to be, unless they actually tell the person where all those properties are. The reason for this is simple. Trespassing and copyright violation are both things you can do by accident (did someone renew the copyright on this really old book? Who knows?) They are both acts that can potentially cause harm, but generally do not. Understand?

Putting your money where your mouth is

[sideswipe76]

There are plenty of people who despise what copyright has become here in the US and elsewhere. The EFF files pointless lawsuits against the DOD in the name of people like slashdotters. We, those of us who whish to rollback copyright, will continue to lose this battle if all we do is sit here and talk smack. The EFF can better serve itself and it's community using more awareness campaigns -- showing the average mac user why iTunes is bad, in simple terms. Not going after a govt institution backed by an administration hell-bent on secrecy. And finally, some slashdotters need to pony-up and run for office!! Slashdotters are armed with enormous technological understanding -- something modern politicians have not even begun to harness. What about running your campaign page from myspace? Get community involvement YouTube style and have supporters submit ads for your campaign and dig up dirt on the other guy. Use the P2P-bittorent-hivemind-google approach to drum-up support with minimal cash. If a candidate could motivate the geek crowd to his/her cause dusty old men like Ted Stevens would be sent packin' back to the tundra so he can look at his "bridge to nowhere" Now, you say, if it's so easy, why don't you do it?! I am not old enough yet to run for either the Senate or HOR. When I can, you can bet I will. I am tired of the "all-talk no-action" I see here.

3 words: sixty million fileswappers

[plasmacutter]

This would be to google's advantage because of the additional legal and political weight that the other players could bring to bear, and because it would make their opposition's case seem that much more absurd.

You'd think... and yet the RIAA gets away with this same tactic. Further, the judges help them along by allowing them to accuse 500 people with one subpoena filing.

I say this is the latest iteration of old people not keeping with the times, pissing off the younger generation until something gives.

wwI and the 60's were supposedly 2 other examples of this... each time the tension manifested in a different way. Apparently the "civil disobedience, "riots", and "wars" of this generation are happening online.