Publishers Thank Google for Book Sales

eldavojohn writes "A few book publishers are actually thanking Google for an apparent rise in sales due to Google's scan plan. Google is busy defending itself against authors and publishers that have brought lawsuits for ignoring copyrights. The director of the Oxford University Press said, 'Google Book Search has helped us turn searchers into consumers.' It seems to work in favor of the smaller publishers: 'Walter de Gruyter/Mouton-De Gruyter, a German publisher, said its encyclopedia of fairy tales has been viewed 471 times since appearing in the program, with 44 percent of them clicking on the 'buy this book' Google link.' Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?"

Comments

Yes.

[cperciva]

Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?

Yes -- both.

The fact that Google's book search increases book sales in no way diminishes the fact that Google is violating the authors/publishers copyright. If those publishers are intelligent, they will give permission for Google to do this; but they have a right to not give that permission.

Re:Yes.

[iminplaya]

...but they have a right to not give that permission.

Incorrect. They were granted the privilege.

Re:Yes.

[X-rated Ouroboros]

If they are using this privilege we have granted them to line their own pocketses at the expense of the advance of science and/or art... seems it's our duty to revoke the copyright we have granted them.

Re:Yes.

[fossa]

Bah. Read this comment from the last Google Book Search Slashdot discussion. It boils down to the fact that not all copying is infringement. "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."

At least some publishers believe it increases sales, and it's certainly not a clear cut case of copyright infringement.

Re:Yes.

[iminplaya]

Precisely. It IS our duty. But like many duties we have to protect our freedoms, we have forsaken them. We have abdicated our authority to incompetent morons. And now we will pay the price.

Re:Yes.

[O'Laochdha]

However, this would disallow that they line their own pockets to the betterment of science and/or art. After all, "it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker...." This greed is the only reason this art for which you're so desperate exists.

Re:Yes.

[O'Laochdha]

Privilege, privilege, it's all privilege. The privilege of free speech, the privilege of property ownership, etc...there are those against both. The government protects your right to the proceeds of your creations - that makes it as much a right as anything.

Re:Yes.

[RomulusNR]

Does flipping through a book in the bookstore violate copyright? No. Any publisher that doesn't want people reading books they haven't bought had better not sell them in stores or sell them to libraries. Holy crap, I'm surprised the library system hasn't been either sued or legislated out of existence, due to the impact their socialist practices have had on book sales.

Take copyright out of the question. Not wanting people to preview your material is stupid business practice, and bad for consumers and the public.

Google Book Search provides online what book stores already can in RL.

Re:Yes.

[mordors9]

Imagine. More freedom and information turned out to be a good thing for everyone. Who would have thought it. I know in my own case, several violations of copyright turned out pretty good for the media owners. I downloaded a copy of Neverwinter Nights to try out, ended up buying it and all of the subsequent addons. I downloaded a couple episodes of the Sopranos to see what the buzz was about. I liked it so I have bought the first 5 seasons on DVD to watch. There is an entire genre of music that I discovered by downloading music, and now own several CDs.

Re:Yes.

[babbling]

Rubbish. What Google is doing should be protected by fair use rights.

Imagine if a friend asked you to search through a book for him and let him know what you found. Would this also be a violation? Chances are, you'd only quote a paragraph or so back to him - Google quotes even less of the book.

Re:Yes.

[Sassinak]

Let me say, No. I don't think they are infringing on the publishers rights. (and before the tomatos fly, let me explain)

In the case of public domain works, google provides the complete text (no different than the guttenberg (sp) project. I for one fully support this effort as far too many people DON'T read more than what is required. This may encourage more people to read the complete work (not part of the argument, but it is a peeve of mine)

In the case of copy writed works, they provide an exerpt of the work, not the complete work. (yes, they scan the entire thing because there is no way for a search to be effective, but publicly available).

I can see how some publishers may complain. "Hey, you are copying my book"

But really that is not the case. Fairuse I believe goes into the same scheme.(if I am at the library and decide I want to photocopy the whole bloody thing, (provided I have enough money) I can do so. Things fall into the illegal realm if I make several copies of said work and start distrubuting them or worse, selling them (which just compounds the crime). This argument is akin to having an photographic memory and reciting lines from the book in response to someone's questions. (umm.. ironically no complaints about Amazon, B&N, Alibris, etc. who provide this exact same functionality on a smaller scale).

I for one, applaude Google's efforts because its sorely needed. The big publishers are worried because they THINK they are loosing money (something like how the RIAA thinks they are loosing money with all the MP3's floating about when in fact, almost every study shows this actually increases sales and exposure because much of the target audience doesn't have the cash (or luxary of time) to sample every CD out there to find their likes. This notion of "copywrite" laws is a pretext to fight this. But like most such cases, it hinges on the notion of "harm done" which is why their is such a rant about "stealing" and "its depriving the artists of their money" (when I think most artists would agree, the Publishers/RIAA have been doing for years. (and like most criminal groups, they don't like it when someone intrudes on their turf))

As some of the smaller publishers already realize (and ironically the same is true with the smaller music groups/bands) all this "information exchange" actually HELPS by exposure at the least.

Oh well, lets hope they get smart soon.. but somehow I doubt it. (stupidity does seem to be infectious, and no one wants to take the cure).

Re:Yes.

[rkcallaghan]

O'Laochdha wrote:

Privilege, privilege, it's all privilege. The privilege of free speech, the privilege of property ownership, etc...there are those against both. The government protects your right to the proceeds of your creations - that makes it as much a right as anything.

Another incorrect assertion. Rights are things that we accept exist regardless of anything the government or anyone else wants to say about it. Copyright is not one of these things. Free speech is a constitutional right, and as such falls between the two areas. It took the constitution to grant this creation, but as we hold it higher than the government or anyone else, its still a right. Property ownership is as a natural right -- almost all creatures, not just humans, have this sense of what is 'theirs' and what isn't. Locke would say that the forest belongs to no one, but once he has felled a tree, the log is his.

Privileges are things that exist only when the government or another higher power says you can have it. Copyright falls under this category, despite the presence of 'right' in the compound. You'll note that before copyright existed, many forms of art and publication still existed -- but Plato never enjoyed the privilege of copyright.

In short, rights define the rules around which a government may exist. The government defines the rules around which privileges may exist. There is a definite chain of command here, and rights are most certainly at the top of the list.

~Rebecca

Re:Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this violating copyright? Copyright allows fairuse. That means parodies or any other fashions. What you may not do, is copy it word for word, 100% and profit from it. So, if Google starts to sell it or turn a profit at a lose for the other, than it is a copyright infringement. But that is not happening.

Re:Yes.

[rolfwind]

Thank you for stating my view.

I'll add that Google should nevertheless add an opt-out program, like websites have with robots.txt, and let the authors/publishers who want to "protect" their copyright watch as their competition get the profits.

Re:Yes.

[RobotRunAmok]

Imagine if a friend asked you to search through a book for him and let him know what you found. Would this also be a violation? Chances are, you'd only quote a paragraph or so back to him - Google quotes even less of the book.

The difference is, your friend does not increase his market share every time he lets someone search through a book. Neither is your friend selling advertising on the walls of the room into which he escorts you to take his book. Nor is he capturing your search request in a database for cross-reference with other search requests from people in your zipcode later on.

Google profits from your search. Your friend allows your search out of charity.

If Google wants to include my copyrighted content as part of their profit-making venture, they can pay me. I'm a poor starving writer (or maybe I'm Stephen King, it doesn't matter), and Google is a super-mega-global-corporation (or maybe their a mom-and-pop store, it doesn't matter), and if they want to use my stuff to make some scratch, I'll take my percentage, thanks very much. If my price is too high, we can negotiate. If it's still too high, we can walk away and talk about doing business another day. That's Business. And Google is in Business.

Google plays up the peace-love-understanding-happy-hippie-new-age-new- media dance, and it was really cute, back in the day. But the Piper's arrived, and just in time, too, cuz a whole generation of kids was just starting to believe that "do no evil" thing somehow exempted Google from obeying laws they thought were old-fashioned (i.e., prevented them from making money).

Re:Yes.

[afaik_ianal]

Imagine if a friend asked you to search through a book for him and let him know what you found. Would this also be a violation? Chances are, you'd only quote a paragraph or so back to him - Google quotes even less of the book.

While I agree with your senitment, I think that's a bad analogy (assuming I've understood your premise). Only the text of a book is copyright, not the ideas. If a friend of mine asked me to look through a book and tell him what I found, I would be summarising ideas presented in the book, not providing them with copyrighted text.

Furthermore, it's kind of irrelevant anyway. AFAIK, the text provided by Google to their users is not what the authors are disputing - I understand that the short excerpts provided by Google are covered by fair use already (see my name for disclaimer). What is under debate, is whether or not it is legal for Google to store a digital copy of copyright works on their servers without permission from the copyright holders.

Re:Yes.

[daeg]

Publishing companies aren't known to be the smartest bunch on the block when it comes to technology. Does anyone else remember the general outcry in the late 90's when publishers thought e-books were going to take over within a few years? A lot of the profit gained in book publishing is from the actual printing process -- e-books threatened to reduce their markup potential. Publishers are worried that the gain in sale from people previewing their book won't outweigh the people previewing it and declining to buy such crap. Walking into a bookstore has an emotional tie -- you want a book, so you browse until you find something, even if it wasn't what you intended to buy. Online, however, there isn't emotional attachment (if there is, it is more likely to be attached to the webiste moreso than anything else). If you don't find something you like, you won't buy. Or so the publishers think.

On the contrary, I'd assume the higher number of people previewing it would, for good books, increase sales. Impulse buying is far more rampant in online shopping.

One thing that would probably solve the issue is allowing publishers a hand in the process. Give them certain leeway as to what pages are available as a preview. That way, they can pick the good parts of the book and not reveal any plot. I don't think they should have pure control over it, though, so maybe 50% chosen pages vs. 50% random/Google pages would be a good mix. Google, to appease publishers, could provide data back to them. They could even show different previews to each user and give them stats back of how each preview affected the buyers as well as demographics related to the sales. That's something a conventional book store cannot provide!

Re:Yes.

[miro f]

oh my god. what a clever idea! why didn't Google think of that?

obviously this idea simply isn't enough. Publishers don't care that their copyright is being violated, they just want some extra money without doing much work.

Re:Yes.

[Breakfast Pants]

Hi,

I'm gonna be coming through neighborhoods robbing houses, just put a card that reads "robots.txt" on your windowsill if you don't want me to break in. Note that "ROBOTS.TXT" is the card for some other burglar, and I won't accept that as an opt-out.

Re:Yes.

[kbielefe]

Google Book Search provides online what book stores already can in RL.

I'm sure copyright holders agree with you. That's why they want google to pay for their copy, just as bookstores and libraries are required to pay for each copy in their inventories.

Re:Yes.

[Breakfast Pants]

Librarians make money, and yet they are allowed to do just such a search, and even return to you a photocopied page.

Re:Yes.

[Breakfast Pants]

"This may encourage more people to read the complete work (not part of the argument, but it is a peeve of mine)"

"(umm.. ironically no complaints about Amazon, B&N, Alibris, etc. who provide this exact same functionality on a smaller scale)."

Apparently your pet peeve only applies to other people. Amazon et. al. get permission for the books they scan.

Re:Yes.

[RobotRunAmok]

Librarians make money, and yet they are allowed to do just such a search, and even return to you a photocopied page.

[rolls eyes and sighs, deeply] Some days I wonder why I ever bother...

D00D!! It's a friggin' PUBLIC Library! Your tax dollars at work! Laws, rules, regulations passed by your representatives in Congress!

Or did I miss the part where The Library, Inc., is now traded on NASDAQ?

Just tell me you're under eighteen and I'll feel a little better, cuz I really don't want to believe that our public schools are releasing kids into the wild who don't know the difference between public libraries and publicly-traded corporations.

Re:Yes.

[kthejoker]

It is prudent to remember in the case of bookstores that they buy the copies wholesale from the publisher. At that point they are the bookstore's property to do with as they wish - obviously, most of them choose to let you browse the product.

But the publishers aren't selling them "in stores" a la consignment. They are selling them *to* the stores. They've already made their money, and are no longer part of the equation.

Libraries are a bit trickier, but for the most part they buy their books, too, and so again, what is their complaint? One particular copy can cycle itself through the system as much as possible.

The issue here is that Google has not bought these books, and even if they had, are they allowed to make a digital copy available (such that infinite copies can be made.) The first issue is easy - Google ought to pay these publishers either a licensing fee or some one-time fee to display their product freely. And Google ought to do that as goodwill, because they are essentially acting as a bookstore, but on consignment instead - which is where the legal ambiguity steps in. If Google acted more as your typical brick and mortar bookstore, this wouldn't be an issue at all.

Re:Yes.

[xdotx]

Hi,

I'm gonna be driving through neighborhoods taking small pictures of people's houses as I pass, and cataloging them for searching. I won't be showing pictures that anyone else couldn't see on their own, and the pictures will always be displayed in incomplete snippets. If you still do not wish for me to do this with your house, just tell me.

Sounds like a much better analogy to me.

Re:Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

If Google wants to include my copyrighted content as part of their profit-making venture, they can pay me

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

Are you that *completely* fucking stupid?

Do you think that the New York Times should be paying you for each newspaper they sell which has a review of your book? After all, they are making money off your work, right?

Re:Yes.

[GeffDE]

Oooh, good point, sir. I really want to form the "Incumbents are Incompetent" Party to boot everybody out of Congress. But I fear that only slashdot members would join. So much for the next great idea in American politics. Or world politics...

Re:Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

bullshit

Re:Yes.

[YrWrstNtmr]

You're friends with Google? Cool!

Re:Yes.

[Dare nMc]

> that's why they want google to pay for their copy,
the copys that google scanned, were purchased. I guess since they are being loaned out by the library at the same time that google shows their scanned copy, that their is a difference.

Re:Yes.

[chazwurth]

You seem to be forgetting Article I, Section VIII:

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries...

You may not accept that this is a right that exists 'regardless of anything the government or anyone else wants to say about it', but it is a constitutional right. Like all other rights -- protected or not -- you may apply the fiction that it exists outside of law if you wish.

Re:Yes.

[RobotRunAmok]

Do you think that the New York Times should be paying you for each newspaper they sell which has a review of your book? After all, they are making money off your work, right?

Oh, boy! A coward AND completely ignorant of the way the world works. Hopefully you can at least play the banjo or know some card tricks or your gonna have some trouble with small groups of people later on in life...

Listen, Citizen Kane, the publisher SENDS a copy of the book to the NY Times, and practically BEGS them to review it because a review in the Times almost inevitably boosts both placement in bookstores AND sales (regardless of whether the review was favorable or not). Passages from the book may be excerpted without explicit permission, as per fair use. This relationship exists because it is mutually beneficial to both the newspaper and the publisher. It is a relationship into which both parties enter, happily and willingly.

There is no relationship between Google and the publisher, beyond Google saying, "I'm going to scan your client's book, usurp some of the distribution rights he sold to you, and make a lot of money from it (while my Marketing Department keeps convincing the kids that I'm the Sugar Plum Fairy and not some rapacious global corporation with more power than Microsoft ever dreamed of). So shut up, you can't afford the legal fees to come after me, but if you're lucky, and your client is relatively unknown with not much of a following, maybe -- just maybe -- my illegal scan-and-search-enable will goose his sales a little."

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on

Ohhhh, let me guess: You're one of the "Code is Poetry" crowd, am I right? Or maybe your idea of a good read is curling up with a Zaurus full of the latest Buffy fanfic, yes? You resent the sales people in your organization because they don't do any of the REAL work, like fixing the mail server or de-bugging the wireless print server, right? Here's a tip: You know all those happy, creative, good-looking, funny and stylishly-dressed people who shun you? It's NOT because they're bitter that God made you better with mechanical objects than they are...

Re:Yes.

[Dare nMc]

> It's a friggin' PUBLIC Library!

hmmm, the company I work for has a library, every private school has a library, what requirement is their that libraries be non-profit, and not associated with a corporation?

> who don't know the difference between public libraries and publicly-traded corporations.
ok educate us, seams most non-profit's maximize return to further their cause (which is often to maximize the salerys of upper management.)
where as the traded corporation is to maximize the return to the share holders (which always includes upper management.)

not sure how that difference matters to the question though.

Re:Yes.

[Qzukk]

If the government wasn't there, I could say whatever I pleased.

If the government wasn't there, I could not stop you from copying what I wrote.

Which then, is a right, and which then is a privilege granted by the government?

Re:Yes.

[paraax]

Not all libraries are public or publically funded. Specialty libraries and those in private institutions (such as private universities) exist and have a right to exist. Some are funded on fees payed and thus the copyrighted works do benefit the institution. I'm not certain if any general publically accessible libraries work in this fashion, but the argument isn't quite as empty as you are making it out to be.

I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not sure how they justify not having an original copy solely set aside for this project, but the books in question are all available for loan via the original libraries they were scanned. If you look at the snippets they provide for copyright works it is clear they are going to lengths to be within the fair use exemption. When our lurking slashdot lawyer's have offered opinions in the past on the subject it has been to the effect that the profit motive is only one factor to consider in the determination of whether a copyright infringement is fair use... and that it is not entirely clear that google's activities are or are not fair use. While I feel they've taken sufficient steps to make sure the search only locates the book and provides a bare minimum of context so you know you've located what you want, the issue will be open until the courts rule on it. As others have pointed out... that is the unfortunate part of fair use. When you are doing something new you don't know which side of the law you'll end up on.

Re:Yes.

[rkcallaghan]

chazwurth wrote:

You seem to be forgetting Article I, Section VIII: [snip]

I didn't forget it, in fact by bringing it up you make my point. The GP was claiming that all rights are actually privileges; I defeated that argument. Again, although the word 'right' is used in the description of Copyright -- it remains a privilege; as it is only granted exclusively to the author or inventor. All of the true rights, constitutional or otherwise, apply to everyone.

~Rebecca

Re:Yes.

[zeugma-amp]

There are a few publishers that get the potential of online books. See, for example Baen Publishing. They have quite a few of their books available at the Baen Free Library. Amazingly, the publisher has found, that by making the books freely available to anyone who wants them in formats convienient to the reader, that sales of those books and authors have increased substantially. Jim Baen, God rest his soul, was a visionary. When I go to a bookstore, I always look for new Baen titles, because I really like doing business with folks that don't think I'm a criminal.

Re:Yes.

[emilv]

Keep in mind that what's your talking about is the American Law. Here in Sweden, there's no such thing as "fair use". Google would not hold up in court under our legislation. Our copyright laws are strictly opt-in - you have to ask BEFORE you do the copying, otherwise it's copyright infringement. The lack of a robots.txt file is not the same thing as saying "Here, copy what you want and store it in your cache". An opt-out system is not enough neither, 'cause the copy has already been made.

Re:Yes.

[O'Laochdha]

Free speech is not one of those things either. You and I agree that there should be free speech, but there are many countries where it is illegal to express certain opinions, including our dear neighbor Canada. There are many, many people who defend these policies, so it's not something "we accept exists regardless of what the government wants to do about it." In certain tribal societies, there was no concept of possession, only the immediate right to use. In modern-day Cuba, there is no right to property. It's not "a natural right."

As for the fact that a right is a restriction on government, rather than something the government grants, it's also something the government grants. Property rights would certainly not exist without a government. Free speech would just as certainly exist without a government, but it would be a much more dangerous institution. Likewise, copyright ensures that the government will not appropriate one's work, at least for a period. One's work becomes a commodity in one's own possession - in a phrase, intellectual property.

Re:Yes.

[O'Laochdha]

So a privilege is something granted by the government, that would not exist if it did not exist. Well, then, I hope you enjoy your privilege to life, liberty, and property. Of course, that's unless someone claims the right for life to be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Re:Yes.

[chazwurth]

I didn't forget it, in fact by bringing it up you make my point. The GP was claiming that all rights are actually privileges; I defeated that argument.

I see your point, but I disagree. Your definitions of rights and privileges imply that rights are super-legal (or extra-legal?). I'm arguing that copyright is a right in exactly the same way that freedom of speech is a right: by legal protection. The GP seems to be claiming that all 'rights' are actually privileges that are legally protected (and I tend to agree). You're claiming that there's a substantive difference between different legally protected rights -- that some are 'true' rights and others are 'merely' privileges. I think you've failed to demonstrate this.

it remains a privilege; as it is only granted exclusively to the author or inventor. All of the true rights, constitutional or otherwise, apply to everyone.

I'm sure you'd agree that 'something that applies to everyone' isn't an adequate definition of a right. Your earlier post seemed to suggest a criterion derived from nature. I'd argue that many of the rights we deem to be 'natural rights' have no basis in nature. Do all squirrels have the right to practice their religion? Must a bear try a salmon in a jury of its peers before eating said salmon? Does a wolf need a warrant from a judge before sticking its nose down a rabbit hole?

We can invent all the rights we like, but I fail to see how any rights attain a special status of 'true' or 'natural' rights aside from the fact that a whole bunch of people agree on them, write them down, and assign the task of defending them to some people with weapons.

It's important to remember that Locke's arguments rest on the notion of a state of nature that is a well-constructed fiction, but not a description of any state that's ever existed in the real world. For this reason, among others, I don't see how the rights he derives are anything other than a (perhaps useful, but not 'true') social construction. The rights exist because we pretend that they're rights, and because we enforce them as law.

Re:Yes.

[MikeFM]

There needs to be some copyright protection but it should never interfere with the good of society. Being able to search and access information freely is critical for an educated society and an educated society is critical for an advanced democratic civilization. I think providing free links to purchase copies of the material should be more than enough compensation to producers of science and art - if their work is worth buying then they'll sell more than they otherwise would have.

Opting out should not be an option for copyright holders. They are given fair compensation so the good of society should then come first. Maybe Google could also offer a way for authors to register for additional free ads related to their works. I for one would like to know when they have new books coming out, their web site, etc.

I think it's like the battle against music downloading. I buy far more CDs now than I did before I started downloading MP3s and it's because I'm much more aware of what is out there. I have wider tastes in music now and I know what more artists are called instead of only half knowing their music from the radio. Example given, I bought the new Weird Al CD on release day because I saw the YouTube video of White and Nerdy that was floating around.

Re:Yes.

[Fordiman]

Actually, many people have formed these parties. They fail primarily because free-thinking people can't agree on most things.

Unfortunately, even if they could agree on something en masse, free-thinkers are highly outnumbered by sheep who'd rather just get on with their lives, and vote for whoever hasn't pissed them off this year.

Re:Yes.

[O'Laochdha]

A fascinating refutation. Could you elaborate?

Re:Yes.

[Jason Earl]

If the government wasn't there, I could say whatever I pleased.

Yes, and I could put a bullet in your brainpan with impunity.

If the government wasn't there, I could not stop you from copying what I wrote.

But I could stop you from copying what I wrote, by force if necessary.

Which then, is a right, and which then is a privilege granted by the government?

Without government you would only have the "rights" that you could defend for yourself. If someone bigger, stronger, and meaner came along your "right" to life, liberty, and property would disappear completely. The difference between what you believe to be a natural right and what you would label mere privilege exists only in your mind. Society determines what "rights" its members have, as is evidenced by the fact that different societies have different sets of "rights."

Re:Yes.

[rkcallaghan]

O'Laochdha wrote:

Free speech is not one of those things either. You and I agree that there should be free speech, but there are many countries where it is illegal to express certain opinions, including our dear neighbor Canada. There are many, many people who defend these policies, so it's not something "we accept exists regardless of what the government wants to do about it."

This really adds no value to your arguement as I already said
rkcallaghan wrote:

Free speech is a constitutional right, and as such falls between the two areas. It took the constitution to grant this creation, but as we hold it higher than the government or anyone else, its still a right.

It took the constitution to create that right; but now that we have it, it is above the law. You're arguing in a circle, stating the same point I did in an attempt to refute it.


O'Laochdha wrote:

Property rights would certainly not exist without a government.

I disagree, and if you doubt this, please by all means head out in to the jungle and attempt to tell the first tiger you see that he has no claim on his prey or his den; as there is no tiger-government to grant him those rights. You might want to bring some weapons though, because he's not going to agree with you either.

~Rebecca

Re:Yes.

[Fordiman]

I disagree.

Greed is the reason so much of past art exists.

But many people do it for the love of it.

In a world with the internet, those people are able to do it, do it right, do it cheaply, and get both the word and the finished product out to the masses easily. This means that the amount of content without the need for copyright is growing exponentially - and while some of it sucks, a lot of it is very good.

Just look at the Creative Commons database.

Should copyright be abolished? Hells naw. Is it infected with "It's mine and mine forever" syndrome? Unfortunately, yes. Maybe copyright needed to be 95 years at some point. It doesn't now. It shouldn't even be past its original 14-28 year limit.

And, just so's you know, I don't believe it should be transferable, or be able to be owned by a non-individual (read: company). Though, my reasons for these are partially philosphical, and only partially based on policy physics.

The reason: if a group with enough cash to be an influencial lobbyist posesses a copyright, it is in their best interests to expand copyright until it's doing more harm than good, as we have seen in every major industrialized company.

Want proof of harm? Look at the popularity of illegal filesharing. It exists, continues to exist, and will exist for a very long time, because there is a demand for it - or more specifically, for content - stretching back as far as 95 years - that can be obtained by illegal sharing. The demand for old IP combined with profitability of old IP is not an incentive towards creativity; it's incentive for stagnancy. How many rereleases of "Snow White" has Disney spent time and money on, for example?

Remember that IP law is there to ensure continued creativity of the content and scientific industries. If it's doing something other than that, you can be assured that it's promoting economic inefficiency (money going where it's not needed, in this case).

If, on the other hand, after 14 years, copyrighted works are released into the public domain, illegal sharing no longer has the kind of demand it once had. It will still be the go-to source for anything older than 14 years, but people are happy to buy the more recent stuff; most people assume that if it comes from the source, it's of higher quality.

The other bit that gives me the non-transferrable and non-individual restrictions is artist compensation. Look at what the RIAA's member companies do to their artists, and tell me that RIAA ownership of copyright is even close to reasonable. The artists get a nickel, and the recording industry gets the lion's share. Spun the other way around, where the artist owns his work, the record company would be forced to properly compensate their artists, or the artists would walk, taking their entire library of content with them.

Like I said, philosophical and policy based.

Re:Yes.

[rkcallaghan]

chazwurth wrote:

I'm sure you'd agree that 'something that applies to everyone' isn't an adequate definition of a right.

Oh, I certainly agree; and cogruent with that agreement I neve claimed that it was. 'Applies to everyone' is one of many qualities necessary to escalate from privilege to right; and not having it is enough to make something not a right. A similar statement would be, having chocolate chips does not make something a chocolate-chip cookie (it could be a cake); but something without the chips cannot be a chocolate-chip cookie.

You're claiming that there's a substantive difference between different legally protected rights -- that some are 'true' rights and others are 'merely' privileges.

Forgive me for going out of order, but your first and third thoughts were basically the same and I wanted to get them together. You have a view that has basically challanged Locke's philosophy since before Locke himself laid claim to it. Unfortunately, we could argue for the rest of our lives and likely never agree on this point. Your claim defines 'a right' as something granted by the government; and Locke's philosophy defines 'a right' as something that supercedes the government.

Personally, I tend to agree with Locke by virtue of a human-absence test. If something (such as property rights do) exists without requiring human-or-better intelligence to create them; then they fall as natural rights. As animals in the wild tend to engage in (primitive) property rights; then property rights qualify. Constitutional rights, like free speech, are not in and of themselves natural rights; but have been escalated to that level by the defining foundation of our society.

A privilege, like copyright, is something completely different. These are just bonuses -- no different than when I get a Pell Grant to help pay for my education. Pell Grants exist because we say they do; they don't exist in the wild, and they don't supercede other laws and definately don't challange anything in the 'rights' category.

On a personal note however, I'm really enjoying this thread. It's really not often you get past even a single reply in a philosophical thread like this without it exploding in to a flamewar. Feel free to email me on gmail if you want to continue, username is the same.

~Rebecca

Re:Yes.

[Darundal]

And, just so's you know, I don't believe it should be transferable, or be able to be owned by a non-individual (read: company).

Legally, a corporation (at least here in the states) is an individual person, with all the legal rights of a live, flesh-and-blood person. While I know company does not necessarily equal corporation, just figured I should point that out...

Re:Yes.

[Bing Tsher E]

There needs to be some copyright protection but it should never interfere with the good of society.

As defined by whom? Most people who think like you have abstraction notions of what is 'good for society' based on an 'individual versus society' mindset.

There is a notion called 'freedom of association' that comes to play. I am free to associate with whom I wish to and free not to associate with whom I do not wish to. If that means I exclude you from the right to read my poetry, that's just how it goes. Tough crackers. The fact that something is published on a printing press doesn't magically give you the right to read it.

Re:Yes.

[dominator]

I'm confused by those who think that Google isn't unambiguously in the clear here. Not because they're doing it for a scholarly purpose. Or because they're only reproducing a terse portion of the work. Or not even because what Google is doing can't possibly affect these author's past decisions to create their works, and thus retroactively disincentivize their respective work's creation (ahem, Sonny Bono CTEA, I'm looking at you here...).

I think that if you're arguing those points, perhaps you're looking at this from the correct perspective. I invite you to look outside the box. Sure, Google might (or might not) win on the above points alone. But I don't think that Google is copying expressive works. Google is copying databases of words.

In the case of Rural v. Feist, the Court ruled that databases (in that case, telephone directories) were not entitled to copyright protection, as they contained little (if any) expressive content. Copyright protects expression fixed in a tangible media, and even then only within certain limitations.

Here, I believe that Google is treating otherwise expressive, copyrighted texts as databases, thus stripping them of their expressivity in the context of the texts' uses. I think that the use of a derivitive work matters a great deal in determining that work's expressivity before the Court. That the use of a work has a transformative effect on the expressivity of that work, possibly even voiding that work's expressiveness in a given context. In Google's case, the works are copied - perhaps verbatim - but their expressiveness is lost in the process. Granted, this may seem non-obvious.

The search results page rendered by Google most likely have some expressiveness, and would be copyrightable. The texts that Google OCR'd are expressive and copyrightable. But Google's treatment of these texts as search indexes - reverse text lookup databases - is in itself not expressive. They're just unexpressive token sequences, capable of being searched. It is in the translation from meaningful, expressive words into an ordered sequence of cold, machine-searchable tokens that the work loses its expressivity. Note that this distinction would still attach copyright protection to things like eBooks, as the purpose of eBooks is to convey expressivity to a human reader via an electronic medium. The purpose of the tokens is to convey an ordered sequence of words to a machine algorithm incapable of appreciating the work's expressivity or content in any way that we'd call "meaningful".

From that, we're left to conclude that the tokens "John Galt" appearing on page 1 of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" next to the tokens "Who is" is merely a fact, absent any inherent meaningful expressivity. And absent this expressivity, copyright doesn't attach to this sentence (which, fwiw, is probably considerably too short for copyright to attach to, anyway). Facts - even collections of facts - simply aren't protected under copyright law.

In the end, Google's Print project is just a fact retrieval system - in essence, no different from the index in the back of the book that they're OCR'ing. Copyright law needn't get involved, because at no point does it affix to what Google is doing.

Re:Yes.

[Bing Tsher E]

On the subject of ROBOTS.TXT, make sure you put the line:

robots=off

in your /.wgetrc file.

It's a somewhat obscured feature of wget that you have to dig deep in the manpage to find.

Re:Yes.

[Bing Tsher E]

Any publisher that doesn't want people reading books they haven't bought had better not sell them in stores or sell them to libraries.

Some books in the bookstore are shrinkwrapped. It doesn't seem to hurt their sales.

Google Book Search provides online what book stores already can in RL.

Only in the case of some books.

Not wanting people to preview your material is stupid business practice, and bad for consumers and the public.

It's a choice for anybody who publishes a book to make. It's not YOUR choice to make.

Re:Yes.

[Bing Tsher E]

Baen is a niche publisher. They very well may publish some good words, but I never hear about them anywhere at all but anecdotally here in Slashdot discussions.

Preachy 'I always look for new Baen titles in the bookstore' comments don't mean very much. You don't find many, do you?

Re:Yes.

[shaitand]

I am not sure I agree. I took a look for myself, searching for a Terry Goodkind book and google only shows a couple of pages from the middle of the book. And they give full accredation.

That definately qualifies as an excerpt last I checked and falls squarely within the realm of fair use.

They did show the cover art though, and that might violate copyright.

Re:Yes.

[indil]

No, the problem is that Google is forcing an opt-out program on all authors, instead of asking for permission beforehand. Opt-out policies work well for the web, where an opt-in search would severely hamper search accuracy and helpfulness. However, this is not how copyright works in the physical world. You can't transcribe parts of a book and then, when sued by the author, complain that they didn't opt out of your copying policy.

Re:Yes.

[shaitand]

Whether you agree that the right to free speech is an innate right or not is another matter. Those who framed our constitution did. Or at least they said they did in public. The constitution acknowledged rights that were believed to have been granted by god. This is consistent with the branches of philosophy that formed the foundation of politics in America.

Rights are supposed to be things that you are innately entitled to and the law exists to protect the rights that are yours by nature. When you bake a loaf of bread, the bread belongs to you. You have a right to your property. Your right to your property would exist even if there were no laws against stealing it.

Intellectual property laws like copyright are not innate rights. Ideas are not unique and are build upon countless layers of ideas that lead up to them. Merely mentioning an idea to another copy's the idea. Ideas innately are meant to be shared and spread like wildfire. The laws concerning copyright are not protections of rights you innately have, they exist to grant you the privilege of copyright.

Re:Yes.

[arminw]

..... I'd argue that many of the rights we deem to be 'natural rights' have no basis in nature........

Rights can only be given out by a sovereign power, not by some impersonal nebulous thing such as "nature". The founding fathers rightly attributed this to our Creator who endowed us "with inalienable rights" upon which our constitution and all our laws are based. God, as the ultimate and only sovereign in the Universe has given us humans certain rights and responsibilities to be exercised under His ultimate sovereignty. This is true, whether atheists like it or not. Many of these rights were codified in our constitution in order to limit and direct the powers of government.

Congress is directed therein to formulate copyright and its duration. Once that was done by Congress, it doesn't matter much, whether you call it a right or privilege, it's just another law. As representatives of the people, they should and ultimately do pay attention to the people if they perceive that a significant percentage of the voters care about a certain issue. Other than for those directly involved with copyright, most people don't really care all that much about coyrights. That's why those that DO care were able to persuade the politicians with money to pass DMCA and expand copyright duration. Only if enough people care about these things, will the law be changed by these same politicians or their successors.

Re:Yes.

[O'Laochdha]

But how can one buy and sell a legal person on the market? Hasn't that been illegal for some time now?

Re:Yes.

[topham]

Actually the intent with the shrinkwrapped books is to INCREASE sales.

While it isn't universal, it isn't uncommon for a shrinkwrapped book to be damn near content free compared to other books on the same subject.

And that's why they don't want google showing off parts of these books.

Re:Yes.

[arminw]

.....As for the fact that a right is a restriction on government, rather than something the government grants,......

No Government anywhere on this planet can grant *any* rights, only take them away. Only the Creator God can grant life, and therefore any right that goes along with that. Our founding fathers knew this, but today many have forgotten this very fundamental fact. Our forefathers codified some of the rights from God, that come with His gift of life to us and wrote them down as limitations on the Government. God gave life and the rights and responsibilities that go with it to the people and expects them to flesh that out with all the needed details. That is at least how it is supposed to work, but there are always people who for selfish reasons pervert these to their own advantage.

Re:Yes.

[kurzweilfreak]

What is under debate, is whether or not it is legal for Google to store a digital copy of copyright works on their servers without permission from the copyright holders.

IANAL either, so is this any different from me typing up a copy of a book I own and storing the text file on my computer? No, I'm not serving it out to anyone, but as you said before, what Google is doing by serving it out is already covered under fair use.

Re:Yes.

[MikeFM]

A society that doesn't collapse under it's own weight is what's good for society. You can argue with what exactly is required for that to happen. I'd say that science and culture are critical for a healthy society and therefore the availability of books, music, movies, technical information, etc are critical to a healthy society.

I don't think I've ever heard a real educated argument that science and culture aren't important to the health and growth of a society. The usual arguments are either that the producer of the content's needs and wants are more important than society's or that non-educational material isn't important to society.

You seem to be taking the first argument and be saying that the good of the one is more important than the good of the many. Not a to uncommon argument in a society that is devoid of a notion of a personal responsibility for your community and people. Obviously being able to own a big house and drive a BMW is more important than leaving a beneficial legacy for future generations.

As to the second argument - it's very naive to think that making information available in usable forms such as books and code libraries isn't important to society. Likewise to think that fiction isn't important to binding society together and teaching common morals and concepts.

You'll notice that I never said that I think producers don't deserve to make a fair profit off their work or to have control over how their work is used. I think it's perfectly proper for producers to have total commercial control over how their work is used for a limited amount of time. To qualify for copyright protection though I'd require the work be formally registered, with a registration fee paid yearly, and permission be granted for non-commercial or archival use. I think it'd be inappropiate for Google to have advertisments on these pages that don't go directly to the producer and as I said before I think the ads should be free to the producer. As to the copyright registration fee I'd make it free the first year, $1 the second year, and doubled every year after the second year until it was no longer worth paying for - or something similar where the cost is low to start but goes up over time in some obvious way.

Putting individual rights and fiscal benefits as more important than that of society as a whole is very short sighted though so I can't agree with your 'tough crackers' concept. Individual rights are very important but they are not everything.

Re:Yes.

[Dun Malg]

I'm arguing that copyright is a right in exactly the same way that freedom of speech is a right: by legal protection. The GP seems to be claiming that all 'rights' are actually privileges that are legally protected (and I tend to agree). You're claiming that there's a substantive difference between different legally protected rights -- that some are 'true' rights and others are 'merely' privileges. I think you've failed to demonstrate this.

Look, the distinction is fairly obvious if you'll quit focusing on the fact that the word "right" shows up in reference to both in the Constitution. A right is something enjoyed by all by nature of simply existing. The exercise of a right does not by its nature infringe upon the rights of others. Copyright, on the other hand, is not in the same class as a "natural right" such as the freedom of speech. The exercise of copyright is by definition a government enforced abridgment of the rights of everyone else. The act of enforcing copyright, by its very nature involves prohibiting the free exercise of certain rights in others. I am not free to exercise my right to free expression by singing "happy Birthday" to a customer in my restaurant because the government has granted a monopoly on public performance rights for that song to one entity: the copyright holder. The granting of the privilege of lmiting the rights of others (in order to be able to charge for license) is for the purpose of enriching the public domain. The purpose was much more obvious in the early days, when the term was 14 + 14 years. The current term of life + 75 years has clearly confused many people into thinking that the right to prevent others from repeating a story you made up is some sort of "natural" right.

Re:Yes.

[shark72]

"Property ownership is as a natural right -- almost all creatures, not just humans, have this sense of what is 'theirs' and what isn't."

My dog's right to property ownership ends when a bigger dog decides that it wants something that my dog has. While creatures other than humans may understand the concept of possessions, they often have little respect for other animals' "rights," whether they are right to property, or right to life.

"You'll note that before copyright existed, many forms of art and publication still existed -- but Plato never enjoyed the privilege of copyright."

And, of course, the Romans didn't have movable type, either. Advancements in technology usually drive the creation of new laws. This may not be where you were going, but the "people did fine without copyright and DRM a thousand years ago" argument either ignores the fact that the technology to copy information has massively improved over the past millennium, or -- worse -- implies that consumers should have the right to use modern technology (P2P, broadband, and so forth) to their advantage, but producers should not.

I may be reading too much into your post, but please correct me if I'm wrong: is your thesis that I don't have the natural right to control how my work is copied, yet you do have the natural right to copy my work?

Re:Yes.

[shark72]

"I disagree, and if you doubt this, please by all means head out in to the jungle and attempt to tell the first tiger you see that he has no claim on his prey or his den; as there is no tiger-government to grant him those rights. You might want to bring some weapons though, because he's not going to agree with you either."

Say he does bring a weapon, and shoots the tiger right dead. Or, perhaps another, larger tiger has already beat him to it? Tigers already understand this; a bigger tiger can and will chase another tiger away from their prey or den if it suits them. Law of the jungle. If we think that the tiger has a natural right to property, that's something that we, as humans, are projecting upon the tiger. I doubt very much that the tigers think so.

Re:Yes.

[rkcallaghan]

shark72 wrote:

Say he does bring a weapon, and shoots the tiger right dead.

Then he has stolen it, no different than if he had carried those weapons in to the Quik-E-Mart and pointed them at Apu. The existance of theft and thuggery do not negate the existance of property rights. The suggestion was rhetorical; part of me demonstrating the existance of property rights without a government.

~Rebecca

Re:Yes.

[Changa_MC]

You can't transcribe parts of a book...

Yes, I can. It is specifically allowed by the legal definition of fair use.

...and then, when sued by the author, complain that they didn't opt out of your copying policy.

But my opt-out policy is only there as a courtesy, providing extracts is a perfectly defensible action.

Google is doing everyone (including the publishers) a favor by providing an index so that we can buy the right books faster. It's not illegal, it's not harmful, it's not even immoral. So why is it bad?

Re:Yes.

[rkcallaghan]

shark72 wrote:

And, of course, the Romans didn't have movable type, either. Advancements in technology usually drive the creation of new laws. This may not be where you were going,

You're right, it isn't. Nothing I'm saying should be read to say that copyright isn't something important in our modern world. The reference to Plato is just to show that its a rather recent human creation, something that comes after the government in the rights->government->privilege chain. We can point to societies that have existed without copyright just fine; but property rights are always present in some form.

I may be reading too much into your post, but please correct me if I'm wrong: is your thesis that I don't have the natural right to control how my work is copied, yet you do have the natural right to copy my work?

You asked to be corrected, so here I am. You are reading too much in to it -- The discussion is about the difference between right and privilege. Copyright in its 'limited time' form is a human creation; and as such is a privilege and does not reach the pinnacle of something that would be considered a right.

It's a topic for another time; but it would definately be an interesting discussion about whether copying in itself could qualify as a natural right.

~Rebecca

Re:Yes.

[Changa_MC]

Shrnk-wrapped books tend to be text books. Since no-one actually wants to own them, they have to be shrink-wrapped to force people to buy them. Blackmailing students is not a valid business model.

Re:Yes.

[Breakfast Pants]

First I was talking about the librarian him/herself. Even if I wasn't, there are things called private libraries. Now, back to my point. Is it your claim that a public library, just because it doesn't make money is allowed to engage in copyright infringement? Why the hell do they spend so much money paying for books then?

Re:Yes.

[Aaron Denney]

They're a reasonably large portion of the SF section of most of the bookstores I visit.

Re:Yes.

[Mathinker]

Oh, no!

I guess that means I break Swedish law every time I browse a Swedish website, since my browser copies its copyrighted content to its disk cache before getting legal permission.

Guess I'm lucky not to live in Sweden. And here I thought you guys were all-in-all freer about this kind of stuff. I wonder if Sweden also has the fairly ubiquitous "have you committed a crime" questions on its border entry form, and what would happen if everyone entering declared themselves as copyright criminals under Swedish law?

Re:Yes.

[shutdown -p now]

The fact that something is published on a printing press doesn't magically give you the right to read it.

Actually, it's quite the opposite. You can refuse to give me your printed poem, of course, but once I get it somehow, nothing magically gives you the right to restrict my freedom to do with it as I please. Which is what the copyright is about. Just like property, it's an entirely artificial construct, created by the society itself to serve the public good. Defined, of course, by the people making up that society - you know, the "public" in res publica. It really shouldn't be so hard to understand...

Re:Yes.

[shutdown -p now]

I disagree, and if you doubt this, please by all means head out in to the jungle and attempt to tell the first tiger you see that he has no claim on his prey or his den; as there is no tiger-government to grant him those rights. You might want to bring some weapons though, because he's not going to agree with you either.

Well then, let us reverse that example, shall we? Take something you believe you own - like, say, a piece of meat - with you and head out into the jungle. Then find the tiger, and try to convince him to respect your inherent right of property to the aforementioned piece of meat.

There is no right of property as we understand it without government. There's only the right of the strong.

Re:Yes.

[FLEB]

Two small points:
1.) Copyright, not copywrite. The latter refers to writing journalistic or marketing copy.
2.) Your scenario of Xeroxing an entire book would be a copyright infringement, not fair use (excepting very extraordinary circumstances). There is no benefit to your free speech ability that would overwhelm the burden of buying or loaning out the book. It would be a minor infringement, in the grand scheme of things, but one nonetheless.

Re:Yes.

[jabuzz]

The other category of shrink wrapped books are classics. That nice hardback cloth bound copy of Lord of the Rings, or the complete works of Jane Austin etc. I know exactly what I am getting when I buy these, I want to buy them and further more the fact that they are going to be in pristene condition is a major plus point.

Re:Yes.

[rkcallaghan]

shutdown -p now wrote:

Well then, let us reverse that example, shall we? Take something you believe you own - like, say, a piece of meat - with you and head out into the jungle. Then find the tiger, and try to convince him to respect your inherent right of property to the aforementioned piece of meat.

This is the same as the theft and thuggery situation I already answered. The roles are reversed, but again, the existance of theft and thuggery does not negate the existance of property rights.

Many animals (incidentially, including tigers!) mark their territory; many of them lay claim to nests and dens. Animals generally respect each other in this regard too. Tigers hunt their own prey, and don't usually try and steal it from other tigers unless there is a severe shortage of food in the area.

Your extreme example of the meat fails to account for the fact that to the Tiger, I too am prey, and in that situation would make me an easy mark. The tiger doesn't typically go wandering in to tribal human towns however, even though they could easily win the battle.

It's ultra late at this point; and the replies are starting to duplicate themselves, so this will be my last reply. I hope you've enjoyed the thread as much as I have.

~Rebecca

Re:Yes.

[Barsteward]

"Then he has stolen it, no different than if he had carried those weapons in to the Quik-E-Mart and pointed them at Apu. " All property ownership is theft, it just started earlier than our lifetimes - the bigger (or bigger gang) you were, the more "entitled" you were to stake your claim for land. Nomads are the only true people that respect that the land belongs to all the people.

Re:Yes.

[Bing Tsher E]

but once I get it somehow, nothing magically gives you the right to restrict my freedom to do with it as I please.

Actually, the 'somehow' of how you got it could give me the right to significantly restrict your freedom. Indeed, restrict it GREATLY, and it might not involve copyright law at all.

Just like property, it's an entirely artificial construct, created by the society itself to serve the public good.

Look who is talking about artificial constructs! 'The public good' is far more of an artificial construct than any property.

Defined, of course, by the people making up that society

What you're defining there, is a 'tyranny of the majority' also known as mob rule. A tipping point down to fascism in recent history.

And yet you harp on like you're preaching about goodness and light.

Re:Yes.

[Bing Tsher E]

SF is a niche publishing category.

(I purchase most of my SF at used bookstores, since the SF genere was almost entirely ruined by the swirling vortex of sword-n-sorcery drivel that overtook it after Tolkein, and the horrible Space-Western serials related to Star Trek/Star Wars. One of George Lucas' most significant contributions to literature was the near destruction of the speculative fiction genere. It's only recovered in the last decade.)

Re:Yes.

[shutdown -p now]

Of course public good is an artificial construct. My point was that, so is copyright, so why are you willing to accept one but not the other?

As for "tyranny of the majority", it is the only true democracy that can exist. Anything else implies that someone out there "knows better" than the people themselves do.

Re:Yes.

[Bing Tsher E]

No. My point is that property rights are not an artificial construct. Copyright law is a construct to protect property rights. And the right to privacy ("you have no business having a copy of my poetry") and the right of freedom of association ("I have the right to give copies of my poems to my friends without it meaning any random person on the street now has the right to read them")

And for somebody who seems to champion many flexible definitions (i.e. 'the public good' as served by copyright law) it seems odd that you're now trying to establish a rigid defintion of 'the only true democracy that can exist.' There are obviously people smarter than average who 'know better' than 'the people themselves do.' This isn't an elitist notion, any more than it's 'elitist' to defer to the judgement of a medical doctor in the operating room of a hospital.

The whole American form of goverment is based on the notion that a 'tyranny of the majority' as espoused in a pure 'democracy' can easily lead to abusive government.

Re:Yes.

[Zentac]

Where do you think (democratic)governments come from? groups of people being harrased by minorities and deciding they better stand together, when you take away governments, what will happen is that they will form again, eventually.

Re:Yes.

[Fordiman]

Heh. I don't exactly feel all warm and fuzzy about that either.

Re:Yes.

[roystgnr]

Yes, I can. It is specifically allowed by the legal definition of fair use.

The factors to be considered for fair use include:

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Google definitely loses on (1) and (2). They may or may not have found a loophole in (3). It looks bad because their "portion used" is the entire book, but it may help that they take measures to prevent any one customer from seeing more than a few pages. Of course, once people start successfully circumventing those measures, (4) goes right out the window too: every book publisher's nightmare is to see PDFs of their books popping up next to MP3s on the filesharing search engines.

Re:Yes.

[Sassinak]

I don't think you understand my position on my peeve. Things that encourage more people to READ. (I'm less concerned with WHAT they read these days, than just opening a book).

Amazon has built into their distribution rights the ability to publish exerpts of some books from some of their publishers. As does B&N. Because they are a for profit business (with books being their most known revenue stream), it would get VERY dicey if they did not seek such permission. (might fall into that hawking copies on the street line I made).

As google is not in the book distribution business, its in a different position. As there really is no direct analog right now, this will sound a little crazy.. but its like having a pretty good exerpt of the book you are searching for on the card catalog cards.

Re:Yes.

[zeugma-amp]

Preachy 'I always look for new Baen titles in the bookstore' comments don't mean very much. You don't find many, do you?

Why yes, I do find quite a few Baen titles in bookstores. As one of the other posters said, they are quite big in SF and fantasy. Because Jim Baen was willing to take a chance on publishing books for free on his website, I've become a fan of several authors that I'd probably never had looked at before. This is something that other publishers will eventually realize. I believe TOR books has started offering some of their books online as well. I imagine that others will follow, as it is a demonstrated money maker. The linked article indicated that other publishers are finding this to be true as well with what Google is doing. I can tell you that Baen and TOR (and probably others I'm not aware of) are not doing this out of some altruistic ideal. They are doing it to make money, and it appears to be working for them. Hmmmm... Doing well while doing good. Sounds like a plan.

Re:Yes.

[chazwurth]

On a personal note however, I'm really enjoying this thread. It's really not often you get past even a single reply in a philosophical thread like this without it exploding in to a flamewar. Feel free to email me on gmail if you want to continue, username is the same.

I very much agree. I'll continue to respond to some of the other posters in this thread, but I'll have an email off sometime today.

Re:Yes.

[chazwurth]

This is true, whether atheists like it or not.

Here's where I stopped reading, and I'm not even an athiest. That's pure flamebait. The only possible response is, "Your delusional fiction...er...god doesn't exist, whether theists like it or not." It isn't an argument and it gets no-one anywhere. It's a shame, because your other points might be worth responding to in the absence of such overwhelming hubris.

Re:Yes.

[chazwurth]

A right is something enjoyed by all by nature of simply existing.

That's the definition that's being floated here; I'm just saying it's wrong. A right is something that we've decided to call a right and has nothing to do with nature. And the burden of proof is on those who claim that there is such thing as 'natural right'. That isn't a given, it needs to be demonstrated.

The exercise of a right does not by its nature infringe upon the rights of others.

We can add that to the definition of a right if you like. Then we'll have constructed a definition in which freedom of speech is a right and copyright isn't. What does that have to do with nature? We can enumerate definitions and apply them to our laws all day long, and that doesn't change the fact that they're just laws.

Re:Yes.

[chazwurth]

Rights are supposed to be things that you are innately entitled to and the law exists to protect the rights that are yours by nature.

They are supposed to be, but I think that's a sort of fiction or myth that we use to justify the fact that these particular laws are placed above all our other laws.

When you bake a loaf of bread, the bread belongs to you. You have a right to your property. Your right to your property would exist even if there were no laws against stealing it.

Really? How is this a natural law? I mean, we say that some kind of right to property exists in nature, but is that really true? It seems that something akin to a desire for property exists in nature, but a right to it? When a large animal takes food from a small animal, do we gasp in outrage because the smaller animal's right to property has been violated?

Intellectual property laws like copyright are not innate rights.

I don't disagree; but I think that the whole notion of innate rights is misguided. We don't need that myth to justify the fact that we place these things above all our other laws. All we need to do that is the belief that these particular principles will, if adequately protected, help us maintain the society we want to live in. Do we really need to pretend that every society in the history of mankind that hasn't shared all of our values, and who have placed other things at the top, are an affront to natural law? Maybe you think so, but I think that's absurd.

Re:Yes.

[arminw]

......That's pure flamebait........

It was not intended as flamebait, but it is the simple truth. This country was founded on Christian principles. It is upon the Christian God, Jesus Christ as we read in the Bible, that this country was founded. You can deem that fiction if you like, but that does NOT alter history. Many today would like to and do attempt to rewrite US history. I hope you are not one of those.

Re:Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no idea how good it feels to finally see a post raising the issue of copyright's cost to society moderated so high. For years it's been treated on these pages as some sort of fictitious absolute right trumping all others instead what it really was when originally instituted, a temporary license on distribution put into place as much to smooth trade relationships with Britian as to spur innovation. Is it too early to dream we're finally pulling our collective heads from our asses?

Re:Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

What a trollish load of bullshit. You seem to be under the misimpression, religious in scope, that for every dollar made someone has to 'pay the piper'. It's idiotic. Generalize it. Build a house, money goes to Craftsman Tools for the finely balanced hammer? Mow the lawn, neighbours pay because of a nice neighbourhood raises local house prices? Your's is the voice of a greed that's shredding society. No, you aren't owed for every mention of that which you chose to release into the public. Copyright's intention was clear until your ilk coopted it into a means of zero-effort eternal revenue: to protect publishers from each other.
      Society is a big, sloppy wash of conflicting values and rights, not the absolutist, statist nightmare you need to make money like Steven King. And if any question remains in your mind regarding it, yes I'ld rather be tossing coins into your hat passing by on the street than see a world in which every mention, excerpt and copy of something you do is federally regulated to put that coin in your pocket directly.

Re:Yes.

[chazwurth]

The Lockean principles of Natural Rights and Natural Law may have been formulated within the context of a Christian society, but they didn't issue from the church -- they issued from the pens of the men of an increasingly secular enlightenment. The founders may have attended church, but there's a reason Jesus' name doesn't show up in the Constitution. The so-called 'natural religion' of these men had much more in common with Deism than with Christianity.

However -- whatever the truth of the historical question, that isn't what you claimed was true regardless of what athiests like or don't like. The statement you made that claim about was this:

God, as the ultimate and only sovereign in the Universe has given us humans certain rights and responsibilities to be exercised under His ultimate sovereignty. This is true, whether atheists like it or not.

That isn't simply a historical claim. It's a philosophical and metaphysical claim, and it doesn't go without saying.

Re:Yes.

[O'Laochdha]

While many people do it for the love of it, most of those people don't really make a stir over copyright. The people who do make a fuss obviously see their art as a source of income, so it stands to reason that that's why it exists in the first place. At least the better part of the art that's problematic wouldn't exist if it weren't.

Re:Yes.

[bigpicture]

"but they have a right to not give that permission."

"Rights" are a fundamental to human affairs concept. (not to publishing) What publishers actually have is a "legal privilege" or a "term monopoly".

Re:Yes.

[Fordiman]

Thing is, I'm not saying copyright *shouldn't* exist. I'm saying it lasts too long.

Re:Yes.

[Lectrik]

No. My point is that property rights are not an artificial construct. Copyright law is a construct to protect property rights. And the right to privacy ("you have no business having a copy of my poetry") and the right of freedom of association ("I have the right to give copies of my poems to my friends without it meaning any random person on the street now has the right to read them")

so your friend Billy gives his copy of your poems to his friend Cassandra, She in turn trades that copy of your poems to David for.. let's say a bagel. David turns around and snail-mails that original copy to Edgar who launches it with his Air Anchor over Franz. Franz is hungry so he trades the poem to Gerald for a belgain waffle. and so on down the alphabet to me Zanthas. At which point in your argument of right to privacy do you get to come to my house and take back that original copy of your poems that you gave to Billy?

And for somebody who seems to champion many flexible definitions (i.e. 'the public good' as served by copyright law) it seems odd that you're now trying to establish a rigid defintion of 'the only true democracy that can exist.' There are obviously people smarter than average who 'know better' than 'the people themselves do.' This isn't an elitist notion, any more than it's 'elitist' to defer to the judgement of a medical doctor in the operating room of a hospital.

Yes, there are obviously people who are smarter than average, I'd aproximate about 50%.
Then again we should avoid the Tyranny of the Majority, wait didn't they try that in South Africa?
Since the MD is much more informed than you you obviously never have to give him permission to aputate the wrong leg, and would obviously never think of sueing for malpractice

I'm not sure how he was trying to 'establish a rigid definition' for the only true democracy that can exist...
From Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary : Democracy

1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections

... That seems a bit like there already is a rather rigid definition that already says what you accuse him of trying to define democracy as.

I can't see how a 'tyranny of the majority'(democracy) is any worse than a 'tyranny of the minority'(aristocracy) or even the 'tyranny of the one'(dictatorship)

The american form of government (representative deomcracy) more likely based on the fact that they wanted an informed electorate, which would be much larger now than back then

Re:Yes.

[RomulusNR]

That's why they want google to pay for their copy, just as bookstores and libraries are required to pay

Well then, I expect in their model that Google will get a cut of sales, just like bookstores do. Hmm?

Re:Yes.

[arminw]

.....but there's a reason Jesus' name doesn't show up in the Constitution....

You are surely right about that! That is a good thing too, because in this country, contrary to where the founders had escaped from, we have the freedom of religion, but not the freedom FROM religion. Everyone may worship as they please. Even the religion of no religion is a religion based on faith, just like any other. No Atheists knows for sure there is no God, they BELIEVE this just as much as the Christian believe that there is. If you study culture and anthropology you'll learn that there is NO group of humans anywhere today, nor has there EVER been that did not have some kind of religion based on beliefs. Humans are incurably religious still today and all evidence indicates this was always the case.

Our founding fathers believed in the God of the Bible, and that all human rights come from Him because He alone can give life. Every one of the framers of the constitution believed that God alone is the source of life and "inalienable rights" that as part of this life from Him. No human nor any government can give or produce life. For this reason, no human can give any right whatsoever to any other human. All that humans from Cain onward could do and always did was take away other human's lives and their rights. Jesus, God come to Earth as a man, was the only one whom it is even claimed to have raised the dead and who Himself alone conquered death. There is not ONE law that was ever passed by any human that did NOT take away or at least curtail some right that previously belonged to everyone.

Re:Yes.

[shikhs]

It ain't a question of "does it" as much as "should it" violate copyright

Re:Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Without government you would only have the "rights" that you could defend for yourself

And ever since I got Government, all the theft and murder has stopped! Hallelujah! Praaaaaayyyyzzzee tha Gubbamint!

Even now, you still have to defend your rights.

Re:Yes.

[shaitand]

"I don't disagree; but I think that the whole notion of innate rights is misguided. We don't need that myth to justify the fact that we place these things above all our other laws."

Actually I happen to agree with you but my views are hardly popular ones. I find that morals, good and evil, god, the sanctity of life, and the sanctity of human life are all mythical concepts used to justify romantic but illogical notions.

Without question, our legal system and the system of philosophy that the founding principles of our nation is based on requires this concept. Perhaps it is because people like you and I do not believe in this philosophy that "god given" rights are eroding and being trampled on?

"When you bake a loaf of bread, the bread belongs to you. You have a right to your property."

This is the founding principle of capitalism. The big animal taking from the small animal does not discount this idea (and is arguably another tenet of capitalism). The core idea isn't that nobody can take your property away from you, the core idea is that the only right that is sure in nature is the spoils of conquest. The little animal has no right to property, the big animal does. It would wrong for 50 small animals to form a coalition to take away the big animals food simply because small animals were starving and the big animal had several times over what he needs.

In other words, this philosophy protects the right of the wealthy to greed and hoarding.

Re:Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, then, I hope you enjoy your privilege to life, liberty, and property. Of course, that's unless someone claims the right for life to be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

You make it sound like life and property would not exist without grant by the government. On what world do you live where a government has succeeded in abolishing theft and murder entirely?

Or?

[taustin]

Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?"

Why does everyone think this is an "or" question? Copyright isn't about generating profits, for the copyright holder or anyone else. It's about control of making copies. Money is a common motive for wanting such control, but is almost irrelevant to the law.

Re:Or?

[WindBourne]

Of course, there is fair use, which is all that google is doing. They have not exposed 100% of the writing.

Re:Or?

[RevMike]

Of course, there is fair use, which is all that google is doing. They have not exposed 100% of the writing.

And here is the rub.

While google is only displaying excerpts, they are making digital copies of the entire book to drive their searches. And those copies are likely dupicated multiple times within their infrastructure.

If they only took excerpts and made them searchable, then they would likely be well within fair use and the authors and publishers couldn't touch them. But they are doing much more than that.

This is the same legal hole that MP3.com found themselves in several years ago. They were providing streaming music to people who could prove that they already owned the CDs. This way you could listen to your CD collection while at work, etc. (This was pre-iPod). In order to drive this system, however, they made digital copies of tens of thousands of cds. They only made the digital versions available to people who alredy owned the CD, but they were still found to be infringing because they made the copies in their own database in the first place.

Now, if you want my opinion, this is bs, and copyright law and the fair use doctrine needs to be adjusted to allow this kind of use.

Re:Or?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, no.

In America, profit is the *only* reason for copyright. Copyright exists to encourage authors and inventors to contribute their work to the public domain. In exchange for that, the government grants those creators a limited monopoly on their work so they can profit from it. Authors profit financially in the short term, the body of knowledge as a whole benefits in the long term.

American copyright has exactly nothing to do with the "moral rights" of an author. The prohibition against making derivitave works is not to protect the artistic vision or creative control; it is to keep a third party from developing a commercially viable idea from groundwork laid by another at the expense of that other. Two of the four elements considered when a judgement of fair use is made consider the financial impact of the use.

To say that money is almost irrelevant to either the spirit or letter of the law is simply ignorant.

Re:Or?

[mvdwege]

While google is only displaying excerpts, they are making digital copies of the entire book to drive their searches. And those copies are likely dupicated multiple times within their infrastructure.

No problems there. In order to scan the book, they have to buy it. In my understanding, after buying a copyrighted work, I can do with it whatever I please, under what is called the First Sale Doctrine in the US.

Of course, copyright disallows me to redistribute my personal copy, but that is not what Google is doing, they are providing excerpts, which is covered under Fair Use.

To make this even hairier, the Fair Use defense is just that, a defense. It is brought against an otherwise valid claim of copyright infringement. In other words, Fair Use is copyright infringement, but it is an allowed infringement.

Mart

Re:Or?

[RevMike]

While google is only displaying excerpts, they are making digital copies of the entire book to drive their searches. And those copies are likely dupicated multiple times within their infrastructure.

No problems there. In order to scan the book, they have to buy it. In my understanding, after buying a copyrighted work, I can do with it whatever I please, under what is called the First Sale Doctrine in the US.

Thats not quite right on two counts. First, the first sale doctrine only covers reselling the originally purchased copy of the work. "First Sale" says that a publisher can't prevent a customer from selling the book to a used book shop, on ebay, or donating it to a library. It says nothing about whether the purchaser can make copies of the book.

Second, whether copying is allowed has a lot to do with the environment in which copies are made. If a person rips a CD in order to put the music on an MP3 player, or even copy it to multiple places to which only they and their family have access, it is unlikely that the publisher is being damaged in any way. It is unlikely that the household in question would consume more than one copy of the work no matter what. Publishers have not brought a case like this to judgement, probably because they realize they would likely lose and having a grey area in the law is better than black law against them.

In contrast, corporation can't act as a single person in this way. Corps have to purchase material for each of the users, because it is likely - almost certain - that multiple copies will be in use at once. So they would need to either purchase enough copies to cover all the users or limit acces to only the number of copies they have.

Re:Or?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

If they only took excerpts and made them searchable, then they would likely be well within fair use and the authors and publishers couldn't touch them.

I'm not so sure. Would/should providing relevant excerpts from, say, a dictionary or encyclopedia constitute fair use, in your opinion?

Re:Or?

[taustin]

In America, profit is the *only* reason for copyright.

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

Article I, Section 8, US Constitution.

I see no reference to profit whatsoever.

But thanks for playing.

Uh,,,, Both

[cataBob]

"Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?"

Can't the answer be "both"?

Re:Uh,,,, Both

[linuxci]

Can't the answer be "both"?

Yeah, that's why they used OR and not XOR :)

Re:Uh,,,, Both

[eclectro]

Yeah, that's why they used OR and not XOR

Isn't asking Slashdot this question kinda like asking if water is wet, or if rock is hard, or if computers are neat?

Increase sales or violate IP...

[Skreems]

Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?

Why is this an "or" question? It can be both, in fact I'm pretty sure it is. This just goes to show that the extremely strict copyright laws we've legislated ourselves into aren't benefiting anyone, including the authors / owners.

Re:Increase sales or violate IP...

[n8k99]

This form of questioning is most suited for the maximum possible variance in answers. A question that queried if A and B are something, requires that Both condition be met in order for the response to be in the affirmative. The OR operator allows for one OR both conditions to be met for a response to be in the affirmative; yet within this response it is generally considered that a human will supply more information that a return value of TRUE, ie an explanation of Why or How the answer was generated.

Ultimately, a question which uses the OR Operator in order to tie together two seemingly unrelated or contradictory conditions is designed to create an environment which is conducive to discussion.

In response to the Parent - It is highly likely that there are specific instances in which Google is violating the rights of the publishers to control copies, yet it seems feasible to me that the publishers will benefit from this service as it puts the material in potential purchasers hands without any cost to the publishers (aside from the whole rights thing that is.)

Re:Increase sales or violate IP...

[strider44]

Of course it can be both. If it couldn't be the submitter would have used XOR.

Re:Increase sales or violate IP...

[strider44]

Pity, someone else made the joke before me.

Do you think...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?

Not stating whether or not Google's infringing, but the question, using everyday English, is phrased as an either or - it could be both or neither.

both?

[Speare]

Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?

It's probably both. But the way US copyright law works, you don't really get a definitive answer anywhere but the courts, and they can pull that "definitive" answer out of their robes.

smaller publishers

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to work in favor of the smaller publishers

Which is all the more reason why it needs to be shut down now!

</BigBookCo, Inc.>

TFP poses a false dichotomy

[Money for Nothin']

Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?

Why must these two points be separate? Is it possible for the search access to both increase sales *and* violate copyright?

After all, that's one of the big questions (if not the biggest) surrounding the RIAA's battles against music file trading...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

copyright "on" I"P" ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The copyright is the "intellectual property", at most (even then it's a deliberately misleading term). Certain dark forces would have you believe that the "property" is the information pattern that is copyrighted, but that is not what even current infofeudalistic law says. Even under current law, no one can "own" information patterns themselves - only a monopoly on their reproduction. And that's really too much if you ask me, but that's why I support the PIRATE PARTY.

And here I thought

[grasshoppa]

I thought we were operating from the assumption that programs like this did both.

Coffee Is for Closers!

[Doc Ruby]

Why should Google be any different from any other sales "person"? When they actually sell your stuff, they're heroes. When they just give it away for free, or annoy you without selling anything, they're villains.

Google shouldn't be able to transmit copies of content without the copyright holder allowing that, but when they do so and make money for those holders (without reducing money those holders make elsewhere), they won't get many complaints.

Of course, while copyrights stop copying well past the length required to protect the motivation for producing them, and stop the fair uses (including indexing for referrals), it's hard to be sympathetic about violations of what are really "copyprivileges", rather than real "rights".

Yes, but...

[Aaron Denney]

Basically, yes, Google is violating the copyrights, when they scan the books in. This is a copyright violation.

This is not, however, what is upsetting the the authors and book publishers. What upsets them is that google is allowing other people to search, which is fairly clearly fair use, given how much is displayed. They want a cut of the money stream, of any possible monetization of their works, even though that is not what copyright entitles them to.

(Counting this as a copyright violation is going to be horrendous once we have AI...)

Re:Yes, but...

[Talchas]

Umm, so I can't scan in a book I own? If thats illegal it sure as hell shouldn't be! Distributing the electronic copy however, should be.

Re:Yes, but...

[paraax]

Google doesn't own the books. Affiliated libraries own the books and theoretically lend them out on some occasions.

If you scan your own book and then lend out the original while retaining the scanned version for reference that may be a violation.
I'd be curious to see if the scanning part would hold up as fair use if you copied the entirety of the book. Unless there are aggrevating circumstances its not likely to ever come up in court though.

Re:Yes, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's no more a copyright violation to scan a book for use in a search database than it is to 'scan' a website for use in a search database. So no, scanning books as Google does is *not* a copyright violation.

Re:Yes, but...

[Aaron Denney]

As to those who question whether scanning a copy of book you own is a copyright violation, you can see for yourself how out-of-control copyright law is by visiting
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/us c_sup_01_17.html

Copyright covers, both actual distribution, *and* mere copying. See section 106, clauses (1), (3), and possibly (5).

This is how some BIOS reverse engineers were successfully sued -- when the computer copied the BIOS from the ROM into RAM to execute faster, this was ruled a copyright violation even though this is exactly how it was designed to be used.

Fortunately, this was mostly fixed with section 117, but this only applies to computer programs, though section 112 covers some (but not all) similar issues for other types of works.

If section 108 were slightly altered, it could provide an exception that might arguably apply. This allows archives and libraries to make copies in certain circumstances, but it doesn't apply if they get *any* commercial benefit, direct or indirect. If they provided this service even with no ads, they still would presumably get good will from this...

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are the two mutually exclusive? Yay for illogical Slashdot editorializing.

Can you say "false dichotomy"?

[jc42]

Heh. Here I was all prepared to to point out that the obvious answer is "both", but I noticed that every single reply so far has said the same thing. So rather than be rated redundant, I'll just point out that there is a standard name for this particular bit of illogic.

If authors had any sense, they'd be jumping onto the anti-copyright bandwagon. Such laws were, we're told repeatedly, created to give authors and artists control over their creations, and to guarantee them income from sales. More and more, the actual effect is to take away the creators' control, giving control and profits primarily to their corporate masters.

This story just illustrates that some authors have figured out that it helps to let their readers know what's available. And the copyright question basically asks whether a publisher has the right to block communication between an author and the audience.

Maybe we do need some sort of copyright laws. But authors don't need the current copyright laws. That's what's keeping most of them poor.

Re:Can you say "false dichotomy"?

[whathappenedtomonday]

If authors had any sense, they'd be jumping onto the anti-copyright bandwagon.

Well, publishers are beginning to do just that. During the book fair in Frankfurt, Germany (biggest in the world), industry representatives called for unrestricted access to ISP customer data to fight (audio) book piracy, stating that there's no need to involve the courts. This would violate lots of constitutional principles we have here, but noone seemed to care. If they've learned anything from the **AAs, they'll probably get what they want by lobbying and bribes...

Article in German here

Re:Can you say "false dichotomy"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, copyright was originally granted to the publishers, not the authors.
http://betweenborders.com/wordsmithing/the-statute -of-queen-anne/
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0149-6611(192103) 36%3A3%3C146%3AQAAANO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U

The USA constitution allows congress to grant copyrights to the authors, but for the purpose of promoting the arts and sciences. Any rewards that the authors or publishers get from it should be evaluated as a means, not an end. By that standard, I think our current laws are overbearing and too restrictive to get the job done.
http://www.farcaster.com/presentations/copyright-d rei97/tsld009.htm

A little googling will go a long way (and use of that term will likely be considered by Google a violation of Google's IP)

The programmer's answer

[A beautiful mind]

Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?

Yes.

Re:The programmer's answer

[JeremyALogan]

the way it was worded I'd have to sub-text your answer with "boolean logic be damned"

Re:google = parasite!

[NotQuiteReal]

Technically, they are "adding value" by sorting thru and indexing other people's crap.

Oh, you are looking for "corn turds" - maybe you would like to visit our sponser, the "organic corn growers association."

(lol - I was trying to get a real ad link... aparently Google tactfully refrains from referer ads with certain words in the search ;-)

Publishers Thank Google for Book Sales

[bigrigdriver]

Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?

When I walk into a bookstore, I can peruse books before buying.

Now, I can peruse books via Google before buying.

In the first, I can physically handle books. In the second, I can electronically handle books.

The only difference I see between the two, is that, via Google, I don't have to leave home to peruse, and buy, books.

Re:Publishers Thank Google for Book Sales

[telemart73]

No, the difference is that the bookstore purchased the book for you to peruse (although bookstore purchasing is really weird with their return to publisher policies) and that Google paid no one a cent for their copy. This is more akin to you taking the book from the bookstore, letting someone else peruse it and then taking the money back into the bookstore to pay for what you took.

Re:Publishers Thank Google for Book Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

Google paid no one a cent for their copy.

Google purchased their copy. How else do you think they scanned it in, by ESP?

And they scanned the whole thing in for their own use, which is perfectly legal. Then, they dish out tiny snippets of it to searchers, which is clearly covered by fair use provisions.

So where is your beef?

Re:Publishers Thank Google for Book Sales

[umbra_dweller]

Your experience is not the difference, the publishers are not concerned about the consumer level here. The difference is that bookstores haveexisting business relationships with publishers and have already paid something for the books in stock, and thus the publishers have made a decision to loosen their grip on their copyrighted material. But Google on the other hand has taken it upon themselves to offer prewiews to the public, without the publishers having a say in the process.

Re:Publishers Thank Google for Book Sales

[miro f]

Google purchased their copy. How else do you think they scanned it in, by ESP?

actually they borrowed books from a public library, IIRC.

completely different kettle of fish

Re:Publishers Thank Google for Book Sales

[telemart73]

i don't have a beef. just pointing out that these weren't purchased by google, they were borrowed from libraries (for the most part). personally, i'm all for fair use, since it is the law. i'm curious to see how this plays out.

Re:Publishers Thank Google for Book Sales

[tkrotchko]

Not exactly.

If you opened up a used bookstore you would buy used books and allow anyone to browse them without buying.

It's arguable that Used Book stores are worse for publishers and authors than Google, but that argument is one of those argument people make at the coffee shop because they're bored.

The point is that there's nothing wrong with the google arrangement other than google is making money off this via paid search placement. The publishers are mainly irritated they didn't think of themselves.

Aren't they dumb?

Re:Publishers Thank Google for Book Sales

[rapidweather]

I used to go up into Books-A-Million, with a scratch pad in a pocket, and sit down, and copy stuff from all sorts of computer books. They didn't care. Once in a while I would find a book that really hit the spot, so I would forgo the copying, and just head to the checkout stand, and buy it.
One book I got at Borders was Knoppix Hacks by Kyle Rankin.

First thing I did when I got home, was remaster the CD to get rid of that pocket knife background for KDE in the Knoppix 3.4 CD that came with the book.

-- Rapidweather

Re:Publishers Thank Google for Book Sales

[Kuvter]

Then the only difference legally would be that at the bookstore the publishers are letting it be distributed to those stores.

If they also let them be distributed via Google, then there is no difference.

Re:Publishers Thank Google for Book Sales

[umbra_dweller]

Good point, though even in the case of used book stores there is only one book for one person (or perhaps even group of people), thus only one person (or group of people) can get any value out of each book at one time, whereas a theoretically infinite number of people can get the exact same value from one posting of a book on Google - audio/video material has faced this problem for a while, but things like Google books are the first time this has happened with print media on a large scale. However whatever the publishers rights may or may not be, we certainly can agree that they are dumb.

Not mutually exclusive points

[FFT99]

Copyright was violated for sure, according to the law.

It can be debated whether sales increased or not.

By knowing more about what's in a book readers can make more informed decisions, but that's about it.

But these points are not contradictory.

Glad we all agree

[Anonymous Coward]

cperciva: "Yes -- both." taustin: "Why does everyone think this is an "or" question?" cataBob: "Can't the answer be "both"?" Skreems: "Why is this an "or" question?" Speare: "It's probably both." Money for Nothin': "Why must these two points be separate?" grasshoppa: "I thought we were operating from the assumption that programs like this did both." Wow, what a debate!

No surprise there

[obli]

Oh hey, it works just like filesharing giving artists increased publicity and sales, no surprise there.

Here's what google should do;

[zcat_NZ]

They should announce that for one month, publishers can choose to give google permission to index their books.

At the end of the month, every publisher that didn't gets dropepd from the index. If they want back in (because, for example, they discover their competition is getting hundreds of click-throughs with 40% or more sales) they have to pay Google either a BIG up-front payment or a percentage of all future sales.

It's funny, but most places make you pay heaps for advertising. Especially for well-targeted and effective advertising that leads to a high percentage of sales. I never understood why google feels they have to give it away free.

Re:Here's what google should do;

[dolface]

/dolface agrees

excellent idea!

Re:Here's what google should do;

[Bing Tsher E]

To be fair, at the end of the month, when none of the publishers Opt In, does Google simply become a catalog website for Baen Books and whatever other minor lackluster publishers they hook into the deal?

IOW: does Google fold up the tent and shut-er-down?

Re:Here's what google should do;

[zcat_NZ]

I just don't understand the mentality of the publishers. Free advertising. More sales. How is that bad?!!!

Just because you have the _right_ to shoot yourself in the foot doesn't make it a good idea.

A whole encyclopedia?

[goofyheadedpunk]

>'Walter de Gruyter/Mouton-De Gruyter, a German publisher, said its
> encyclopedia of fairy tales has been viewed 471 times since appearing
> in the program, with 44 percent of them clicking on the 'buy this
> book' Google link.'

Can someone provide a link to this book? I would, oddly enough, like to buy it.

Re:A whole encyclopedia?

[Jugalator]

I did this: http://www.google.com/search?q=Walter+de+Gruyter+f airy+tales&btnG=Google-s%C3%B6kning&lr=

Following the summary for link #1, I got this: http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN3110082012&i d=c3zrJD0TPekC&dq=Enzyklop%C3%A4die+des+M%C3%A4rch ens

Maybe that's the one you're looking for.

Re:A whole encyclopedia?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN3110149389&i d=zAuwNsbrJaUC&pg=PA1374&lpg=PA1374&dq=Walter+de+G ruyter/Mouton-De+Gruyter&sig=wv1jh1wLP90z-UCNstXFL gVQMPQ i think this is it. but it's in some strange language.

Re:A whole encyclopedia?

[flyingfsck]

http://www.degruyter.de/rs/169_7532_ENU_h.htm

Re:A whole encyclopedia?

[Bing Tsher E]

Are you sure you don't want to just click on the 'buy this book' link? That's all the article claims. It says nothing about follow-through statistics.

Re:A whole encyclopedia?

[Sinical]

It's in German...

http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN3110082012&i d=c3zrJD0TPekC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Enzyklopaedi e+des+Maerchens

The subtitle is "Handbook of historical and comparative narrative research" according to:

http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0422809403&i d=pN__NqrfGTcC&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9&dq=%22Encyclopedia+o f+Fairy+Tales%22+Walter+de+Gruyter&sig=6gbeiG569yu cQ6TwYIpMwSdIIU8&hl=en

Who cares?

[jbf]

Who cares if it increases their sales? If it does it in a way that's contrary to the author's intent, then copyright law prohibits it. Consider someone who writes a book on the evils of the Internet and prohibits its contents from being shown on the Internet. Why should that hypothetical author accept Google posting their book? What if Google had fewer controls so that the entire book could be copied? Publishers that want Google to index can provide Google a license. Those who don't should be protected by law (and Google's use has serious problems under fair use doctrine, since the copied amount is the entire use, it impacts the marketability of reference works where only a few pages are needed at any time, it can be used to form a collection of works, and it is being commercially exploited.

The slashdottitude of "unauthorized copying of books/music/videos/software is just free marketing" is in direct contradiction to the letter and intent of modern copyright law, and even if it does help sales, that's a decision for the copyright holder to make.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why Google allows publishers to de-list their books from the search. Problem solved.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

The slashdottitude of "unauthorized copying of books/music/videos/software is just free marketing" is in direct contradiction to the letter and intent of modern copyright law...

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Re:Who cares?

[fossa]

"If it does it in a way that's contrary to the author's intent, then copyright law prohibits it." In fact, that isn't at all how copyright works. The letter and intent of copyright law only grant the author partial control over a work. In the US at least, copyright grants the author exclusive license to certain forms of copying until the work enters the public domain where the author's intent is then irrelevant. For the duration of the copyright, not all copying is infringement. Not all copying is infringement. Is Google's copying infringement? The courts will decide; I personally think the law should not forbid Google's actions whether or not it currently does, which is unclear at best. Google and other search engines' caching of websites for the purposes of redirecting customers is not considered infringement for example.

Re:Who cares?

[AaronLawrence]

*sigh* you missed the topic. It's not about the "letter or intent of modern copyright law" but what is morally right, and what is better for society as a whole, and even what is the most profitable. The current law is an interesting data point in that debate, but not particularly interesting as a conclusion.

900lb elephant

[slackaddict]

Google is the new 900lb elephant that's going to get away with a lot of things because of the exposure or money they can bring to people. I guess their do no evil mantra has some post scripts... :-(

Re:900lb elephant

[flyingfsck]

A pigmy elephant?

Re:900lb elephant

[ScrewMaster]

Yes, rather like a 90 lb. gorilla.

Re:900lb elephant

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see why you might think they are violating copyright (which is still, you might note, up for debate -- I'd say it's no more a violation than any google search, and well within fair use) but ... doing evil? How are the doing anything evil? They give better search to users, better advertising to booksellers, and they don't remove incentive to purchase because they only show snippets. They've done nothing but good, here.

Let it be up to each publisher then

[I'm Don Giovanni]

So some publishers like Google's "scan" plan while some others don't. Seems to me it's up to Google to get permission from the publishers. Those that like it, (e.g. those cited in the article) will give them the OK; those that don't, won't. Google forcing themselves on publishers that don't like the plan is heavy-handed; typical Google M.O. of late.

Re:Let it be up to each publisher then

[Jugalator]

Seems to me it's up to Google to get permission from the publishers.

I thought that's what they had to do already..?

Some existing partners:
http://books.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html

How to become a partner (and searchable):
https://books.google.com/partner/signon?apply=Clic k+Here+to+Apply

Irritating typo

[Peet42]

"Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?"

Peek.

well, if you look at it this way

[Anonymous Coward]

if you were to go into a bookstore, you could just as easily browse through thousands of books and still have your choice as to wether or not to buy them, so if google is providing an atmosphere where you can not only preview the book, but purchase it as well, then i think they should have every right to do so... so long as they are not publishing the ENTIRE contents of the book online without the consent of the owner, after all, would you buy a book online if you didnt know anything more than what is written on the cover?

A more general thought on copyright in this age...

[cleetus]

Law has always moved slowly. At least in the US, either a court has to fashion a new interpretation of existing law, one that, according to some august commentators, ought to confine itself to the interstitial space between existing laws, or the federal legislature has to pass, and the president sign, a new law.

The slowness and expense of both of these methods, and more specifically, the lack of technological anticipation in the current copyright (and patent) regimes, make for some interesting times, given the perfect granularity with which digital technology can reproduce most copyrighted works.

Both of the above factors ought to (and in some corners have) given rise to a wholesale re-examination of the purposes and methods of copyright protection in the US. Having worked in one house of the US Federal legislature, I can tell you that is not really one 'corner' where the re-examination has either been thorough, thoughtful, or disconnected from moneyed (or copyrighted, if you will), interests.

In the end though, I hold out hope that our laws can and will accomodate our practices. It makes no sense to make an outlaw of most citizens if (and this is a substantial and debatable 'if') there is negligible harm in their current practices.

It should be obvious that I feel the submittor's question presents a false choice.

cleetus

Well it's like this

[Anonymous Coward]

It's probably a good thing for the booksellers. But it might be nice if they had ASKED before doing so. How would you like it if someone came along and made some "improvements" to your business without asking you first?

Re:Well it's like this

[iminplaya]

How would you like it if someone came along and made some "improvements" to your business without asking you first?

Happens all the time with building codes, work safety and enviromental laws. And in most cases, even though the proprietor might not like it, it's still a good thing for the rest of us.

Re:Well it's like this

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you even responding to the right question? What you said makes no sense.

Doesn't matter if it violates.....

[Theovon]

The question is whether or not Google is violating copyright by indexing books without author permission. The answer is that any author that doesn't want their book indexed is an idiot or is afraid of people finding out that their book isn't any good before someone buys it.

If I were Google, I'd let natural selection do its thing. If someone doesn't want their book indexed, then don't index it. Then they'll get fewer sales than the smart people who did want their books indexed. Google plays it safe and lets stupid people screw themselves. It's all good.

Re:Doesn't matter if it violates.....

[paraax]

The problem with this approach is that it cuts you off from a huge number of potentially orphaned works or requires you to weave the labrynth of legal ownership rights to secure permissions for each and every book in your collection. This vastly reduces the cost effectiveness of the project and the usefulness of the end results.

I actually approve of this approach in that any author that actually cares has a simple and nearly cost free way of removing themselves. If this is indeed fair use then that is a courtesy, not a requirement. Part of the problem of having 100+ year copyrights is that they vastly outlive their usefulness for 99% of the works out there. The 1% that remains hardly justifies the costs for the other 99%.

On a tangent, it would be nice to have a "renew after X years or lose your copyright" system, except that I think international treaty specifically forbids it at this point.

It's like a "backup" copy to me...

[ChePibe]

Google books will never replace real books for me, but the service is very, very useful.

Case in point: I was writing a research paper this week, and needed to search through a book for a specific name. As this book didn't have an index, I wasn't too enthused about looking through it page-by-page for one bit of information, so I fired up Google books and, bingo - got the name, page number, and some more information as well.

More importantly, however, was a second case. As I was about to turn in the paper, I realized I hadn't completed a reference and needed to find a page number in a book I didn't have with me. I first thought I was screwed, but then fired up Google books and, once again, bingo - I got precisely what I needed even though my book was 25 miles away at the time.

Google adds value to books. I'll still buy just as many books as before - probably more, as now it's easier for me to find books I'm interested in - and makes the books I own much more "user friendly". Great service.

Re:It's like a "backup" copy to me...

[tygt]

This of course doesn't speak to the IP issues any more than the "fact" (well, I hold it to be a fact) that my music purchases increased dramatically when I was using Napster, and have fallen dramatically since I've stopped - like many, I used it to screen (preview? prehear?) music before buying, and was able to access much more music than I would've normally done, especially since I live in an area not served by any decent radio (and being way too cheap for XM - though maybe I'll have to rethink that).

I especially liked being able to peruse music which was a "guilty pleasures" to me...

here's something to think of...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey guys, I'm guilty of "intellectual property theft"
  The other day, I walked into a library, got out a book, went home, and read it.
  And the copywright holders didn't even get a dime!

so what about library's? why aren't we sueing their asses off?

Re:here's something to think of...

[telemart73]

And how do you think the library got the book? It was purchased from the copywright holder. Your tax dollars paid for that, along with mine.

Re:here's something to think of...

[Larry Lightbulb]

In the UK there's the "Public Lending Right" - the govenment puts money into a fund and each time a book is borrowed the author gets about 6p.

just a reminder...

[rootEToTheIPi]

Perfectly informed consumers are a necessary condition of a perfectly competitive market. The large x don't want the current market to become more competitive because that favors small x.

Re:just a reminder...

[Bing Tsher E]

'perfect consumers' is just some marketing dude's wet dream.

There are a significant body of us out there in the real world who bemoan the reduction of 'the public' to 'consumers.' Look into it. You'll find there are many thoughtful people who deplore reductive and mechanistic models of the world such as yours.

It's a big complex world out there, and it's not simply made up of 'consumers.' That is a very 'corporate' attitude that many people oppose.

Re:just a reminder...

[rootEToTheIPi]

'perfect consumers' is just some marketing dude's wet dream.

Whom are you quoting? Not me. I said "perfectly informed consumers." "Perfectly" modifies "informed." My "reductive and mechanistic model" has little to do with marketing and is called economics; look into it. My first sentence states an axiom of economics. My second sentence begins with "The large x don't want," and is descriptive in nature. It is my analysis of an entity other than myself.

Re:just a reminder...

[Bing Tsher E]

Your reduction of literature to economics is telling. There are a LOT of people here on Slashdot who have 'scientific' (although economics and all of the other social 'sciences' are hardly real science) snap-phrases to describe social activites in the restrictive way their minds work. It very much 'defines' the whole 'on-line libertarian' mindset, and also a lot of the psuedo-scientific 'fledgling socialist' drivel that gets passed around.

Go play your linquistic analysis games someplace other.

Or rather, carry on, since this is Slashdot.

I don't think they're violating copyright

[guruevi]

Copyright violation would be that they show the whole book and/or export it as an e-book for you (with or without profit) no matter whether you can buy the book elsewhere or not.

I think most copyright laws have a clause in it that you can use excerpts from a book but not a whole book as long as you note the source of your information with the excerpt. This means that I can use a page out of a book and use it in my essay without having to pay copyrights for the whole book (would become even more expensive for students and other academia) or even copy it from the library aka from a book I don't own myself.

The same happens here. Google gives you the possibility to search for a phrase, displays which book it comes from and a small portion of the book where the phrase is displayed. It's not like they are giving the whole book to you as soon as you find the phrase. They don't steal the book, they get it out of the library, scan it in, OCR it and then if they find a phrase in that book you search for, they display you the particular page, but not the whole book. Just like I can go to the library, scan/copy the whole book (if I have money enough for paper/copies) and then use a single page in my essay.

Re:I don't think they're violating copyright

[antispam_ben]

I think most copyright laws have a clause in it that you can use excerpts from a book but not a whole book as long as you note the source of your information with the excerpt.

This is the "Fair Use" clause, described in the link below. The amount you can quote under fair use is legally fuzzy and situation dependent, but (though IANAL, I'll say that) it is almost certainly a lot less than Google makes available online, even if Google doesn't make the whole book available online.

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Re:I don't think they're violating copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

The copyright violation is that they scan the whole books into their servers so they can serve the searches. This means Google is copying the whole book, even though they don't present more than a (presumably) fair use snippet to the searcher.

Re:I don't think they're violating copyright

[trewornan]

No copyright isn't about copying it's about distribution. Scanning a book onto a server (or copying it in any other way) is not a copyright violation per se.

Strapping on my aluminum foil deflector beanie

[Ignis Flatus]

I think Google will get away with this obvious infringement on copyright for a reason entirely unrelated to issues of ownership or profit. And that is that the government wants it. Specifically, the government wants to be able to quickly datamine works to determine explicitly, and by correlation, what exactly certain people are reading and writing and why.

Google may even get funding from the government to do this, or to give special fulltext database access to investigators.

The Supreme Court will back them up because the use will be declared to be necessary to the needs of law enforcement and national security.

Re:Strapping on my aluminum foil deflector beanie

[OnyxIR]

Wow!!!

Im going to need some more tinfoil!

Re:Strapping on my aluminum foil deflector beanie

[JeremyALogan]

"don't do evil" be damned?

Re:Strapping on my aluminum foil deflector beanie

[blackest_k]

thats a two edged sword,
what defines a book, being published in some way? lots of things are published and a matter of public record just a very obscure public record. Imagine how easy it would be to dig the dirt on anyone, especially someone who has held or holds public office...

Partially Scanned books Will increase sales.

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the bookstore analogy:

Scanning the table of contents, first chapter, front and back cover, and 'inside flap' summary - is akin to picking up the book in the bookstore and flipping through the pages.

As long as google gives direct links to purchase the books, the scans should increase book sales.

Anyone who is a Customer (truly wanting to buy and having the money to buy)
will buy based off of seeing the book on-line.

Google Will increase the number of buyers buying books - due to increased exposure and ready access to purchasing.

Other people just browsing around, they were never real customers - because they were just looking, and even having had seen some of the book, still have absolutely no intention of buying. No loss - because they were not going to buy anyway.

Scanning whole books and posting them as PDF files - well, that would put a dent into paper copy sales,
since some customers would prefer PDF files - imagine the average student sick of carrying 20 kilograms of books around !
One 15.4 inch screen laptop with all the PDFs would be much easier on the back...

But then we get into the whole Right To Read situation.

iTunes has had brisk sales of audiobooks - surprisingly so. People can jog or lounge with their eyes closed, sitting in a hammock. It's story time for adults - even grown ups enjoy someone reading a story to them.

Google and copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

If the publishers were smart, they better allow this. Because there can be a entire restructure of the publishing business. I can imagine a world where authors band together to keep their copyright, publish online and the online publisher owns the copyright, but grants half of any profit to the author, and this costs nothing. They then treat book printing as an outsourced business model. Can you imagine if book authors grant google the copyright initially and google then outsources the printing to the highest bidder. This almost sounds like free agency in sports.

WhatMeWorry!

Great Defense Google!

[frieza79]

So, If someone was suing my company, I too would probably come up with some "statistics" that showed I was actually helping them. Not that I don't believe in google's "do no evil", but no company really thinks THEY are doing evil, not even Philip Morris, they just provide what the customer wants.

Why don't we focus on something else?

[newhoggy]

Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?

Let me ask a different question: Given the benefits Google's actions give to publishers generally, do these attacks on Google amount to an anticompetitive measure to prevent the growth of small publishers?

It's a floor wax AND a desert topping!

[antispam_ben]

From tfblurb about the article by the submitter:
Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?"

Why can't it do both? And I'll not be surprised if it did both.

Wasn't this one of the arguments for "sharing" commercial music via MP3's and P2P networks? That it increases sales, thus it should be legal?

<sarcasm, mode="ON">

What if I hold a gun to every person who walks into a store and say "Buy this book or I'll shoot you" or "buy this CD or I'll shoot you?" Wouldn't that increase sales? And if it does, shouldn't it be LEGAL???

</>

Re:It's a floor wax AND a desert topping!

[Jay Clay]

The difference in your analogy being that there is more of an issue than the law itself. If it's true that P2P sharing helps music sales, then the reason why music copyright law exists - to ensure the owners are compensated for their work - is negated. How is the violation of the consumer's treatment in your analogy ever negated for the consumer?

And here's a question: if it were viable to seek legal rights to force people into buying CD's at gunpoint, do you really think they'd have an issue with it?

For me, I think that there should be (but probably isn't), a legal stance of ignoring a law if its purpose of existence is negated when it's broken.

Re:It's a floor wax AND a desert topping!

[1u3hr]

the reason why music copyright law exists - to ensure the owners are compensated for their work

That's actually not the reason we have copyright law.

In the US, for instance:

"The Congress shall have Power . . . To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Author and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 8

And in many European countries the concept of authors' "moral rights" is enshrined in copyright law. Not the right of publishers to make a buck.

The REAL programmer's answer

[statemachine]

return(TRUE);

Doing something!

[Anonymous Coward]

We have a problem. Google is trying to solve it for all of us. Our problem is that knowledge as a whole is vastly more valuable than bits and pieces scattered everywhere. Right now, searching for all knowledge on, say, sebaceous glands, means you must go physically to Washington, DC and visit a bunker on the campus of NIH that is kept closed most of the time: The National Library of Medicine. Less than 2% of medical knowledge is available online. Searching services like Google's or pub-med and others never bring up all the source materials you need. Worse, there's no reasonable way to see all the research on a subject without a multimillion dollar budget! Make this comparison as analogy. Take a book, any book. Now compare the value of that book to the same book whose pages are scattered and hidden among millions of squirrels. Squirrels are publishers who feather their own nests for their own purposes with bits and pieces of knowledge that they feel they own. Yes the authors of scientific papers are forced to give up the copyright to their own original work by the God-cursed publishing houses. Authors get nothing, ever, indeed, often authors must pay "page charges" to get anything published of their scientific work. Oh authors who work for large academic institutions get higher salaries and benefits if they publish, but those of us unafiliated with Harvard get nothing, ever, even if our work is read and admired by millions of people. Fair? The God-cursed publishers have their advertizing revenue, and more advertizing revenue with each reading, but they want $25 to $50 to let a published scientist read an article on a home computer. Scientific publishing is a cartel that must burn down for the sake of human progress. No wonder scientific progress has slowed to a crawl. What if we treated patents this way? Testing hypotheses is in the public interest, overwhelmingly paid for by public largesse, and should be public property.

Robots Exclusion Standard

[jdbartlett]

Not sure if you have a point to make, but the robots.txt method has been a de facto for over a decade (see Robots Exclusion Standard). It is not proprietary to Google or any other search engine.

I have no idea what you're trying to get at by comparing search engines to burglars.

Re:Robots Exclusion Standard

[Breakfast Pants]

And what is the standard for a published book? You have to individually contact everyone you don't want scanning it?

Re:Robots Exclusion Standard

[Dion]

Uhm, well the alternative is to contact every copyright holder individually to get permission to read their books before scanning it.

You shouldn't need to ask for permission to read/quote books just because it's a machine that does the reading/quoting.

Google isn't redistributing the scanned pages, they abide by the normal rules of copyright, so they shouldn't need to go around asking for permission.

I think this is yet another case of copyright being outdated, clearly what Google is doing is entirely fine because they are not ripping off the copyright holders.

Re:Robots Exclusion Standard

[Breakfast Pants]

Wow you sound like Fox News.. there can only be one alternative? How about this, if this thing isso great for their business, etc. etc., let them contact you and opt in.

Consumer

[umbrellasd]

Effective search just means the customer can buy more of what they want and less of what they don't. Of course, any major retailer that sells a fixed inventory of "acceptable" products is going to be unhappy, because people's interests, if they have the search abilities necessary to easily pursue them are widely varying and sometimes not "acceptable" according to the general definition of consumer.

If I'm interested in topic XYZ and can search and find the 2 retailers that sell that item, I'll buy it rather than a somewhat similar book on ZYW. Alternatively, if I'm interested in the very common topic A and I have access to search that helps my find the single best price for topic A in the world, I buy it at the best price. Therefore any company that relies on your limited knowledge to get more money out of you for topic A is going to be upset.

99% of all consumerism is about fucking over the guy that knows less than you. When relevant information is ubiquitously available to all interested parties, capitalism falls on its ass (or becomes militaristic to enforce information limitations on the general population--and what do you think is happening right now...). What this all means is that the livelihood of the majority of people depends on the relative ignorance of other people. For that reason, search, if it is allowed to be continually available to all for virtually no cost, will shake the foundations of the world's economy. And since those in power don't like that very much, it's likely that things will get bloody and strict controls will put be put in place on search. Just wait and see!

Google have addressed this.

[C10H14N2]

Publishers can both opt-in and opt-out.

http://books.google.com/googlebooks/publisher_libr ary.html

Fair use rights are dead

[Roger W Moore]

Just looking at the number of comments here it is clear that the corporation brainwashing is really working. The number of comments saying "of course it is copyright violation" is amazing. Does nobody remember fair use rights? It is perfectly legal to quote sections of a text (or play small sections of a song or film). If it weren't it would be impossible to review music, songs or books or at least those reviews would be worthless since the copyright holder would withhold permission if the review was bad.

The fact that there are so many slashdotters who seem to have blindly accepted the "if I reproduce anything of the text it is copyright violation" is amazing. If here on Slashdot there are that many people who have accepted the death of fair use rights I worry that effectively we really have already lost them.

Re:Fair use rights are dead

[cwsulliv]

The fact that Google is actually copying the whole book is what constitutes the copyright infringement, not just the few "fair use" pages that the reader is permitted to view.

Yeah, it's a stretch, but that's what lawsuits are all about.

Actually, bookstores *are* consignment shops

[Roblimo]

FYI, bookstores "buy" books from publishers with the right to return them for full credit if they don't sell. So in real life, in the end, publishers supply them on consignment.

Not only that, authors share the risk. They only get royalties on books that customers actually buy, not on copies *shipped to* bookstores.

Even more fun, the bookstore gets as much of the total retail price of the book -- about 50% -- as the publisher and author combined.

It's a sick system, especially for the authors, which is why so many of us (I've written three books) are starting to look into alternative publishing and distribution channels.

- Robin

Re:Actually, bookstores *are* consignment shops

[Anonymous Coward]

It gets even worse than that for most mass-market paperbacks -- the bookstore gets full credit for unsold books even without returning them. They simply ship back the covers as proof that the books have been destroyed rather than sold. So not only does the publisher not get any money, it no longer has the book to try selling it another time.

Re:Actually, bookstores *are* consignment shops

[mibus]

FYI, bookstores "buy" books from publishers with the right to return them for full credit if they don't sell. So in real life, in the end, publishers supply them on consignment.

Like many things, that depends on the publisher. Many book stores seem willing enough to buy books in small quantities on an account, rather than on consignment.

Depends on what their selling

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a marketing genus, but I thought in order to sell anything the more people that see the product the more you sell. Unless of course what your selling is crap, then you don't want anybody to see a sample until after they buy it. In this day of copyright anything I wouldn't be at all surprised if it is against copywrite law since the laws have been migrating more and more toward the Disney Plan that once something is copyrighted its good for ever, even after the copyright holder is long dead and fair use won't exist anymore. Bottom line I think its good for the business of selling good books and bad for the business of selling bad books and a great idea for for consumers to find a book they may light.

We as people like

[JohnnyGTO]

to hold a book, flip quickly through it, mark pages, set it down and forget it, search for it, be almost comforted by it. Reading on a pc is to impersonal, its good for quick sound bytes, like Slashdot stories but not easy enough compared to a book. I recently tried out the Safari Bookshelf from O'Rielly and if I good justify the cost based on searching for a specific answer it was great. But for reading a book cover to cover it was just to distracting. Like reading with the TV or radio playing loadly in the background. Email, web searches, solitar, just to many ways to get of track. And personally I think the size and shape of a book has evolved from what we need in order to be comfortable reading. Just my 2 bits.

Re: Rename it 'Google Book Store'

[Yez70]

They should keep the search as it is and scan every book in they choose to. The result pages though could be renamed 'Google Book Store,' maybe with a byline 'brought to you by Google Book Search.'

This makes them no different than a library using the indexing system and/or a book store. People can search for what they want and browse parts of it and choose to buy it. Would the publishers say 'you can't sell our books?'

This could be expanded further into a subscription based library model too, but I doubt it would do well until ePaper takes off and is widespread. Reading a book on a screen sucks.

It does both.

[Cinquero]

Useless discussion. Almost as useless as /.

It helps

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?

Recently I bought a book using links from book search which is neither widely availble nor reviewed much after reading few pages with sneak peak. Without reading those pages, I wouldn't have bought that book. Reading a few pages helps in deciding whether the book is worth buying. This is just like going to a bookshop and reading a few pages before making a decision. Plus sneak peak has an extra advantage. It brings us relevant pages, cutting down the time to look at the contents of the book.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

A peak is a mountain

[1u3hr]

PEAK: mountain top

PEEK: quick glimpse.

This in an article quoting Oxford University Press....

Google Books is actually two programs

[bgalbrecht]

Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?"

Most people seem to be unaware that Google Books is actually two programs, which were originally named Google Publisher and Google Library. Google Publisher contains books submitted by the publisher, and the publisher has granted Google the right to display some percentage of the book, and are listed as Limited Preview in the Google search results. This increases sales but does not violate copyright, presuming that the publisher's contract with the author allows then to advertise in this method (if not, that's between the author and publisher).

Google Library, on the other hand, are from books borrowed from libraries, scanned by Google, without permission from the copyright holder. If a Google Library book is in the public domain (mainly US books prior to 1923, or foreign books prior to 1909), the entire book is displayed, and is listed as Full View in the Google search results, this is unlikely to increase sales, and does not violate copyright. Google Library books not in the public domain (actually, some are in public domain due to copyright holders not making the required copyright renewal, but Google is not interested in doing the research), then the book is only displayed in Snippet View, 3 lines per search hit. The snippets themselves would not violate copyright, as they are small enough that they would likely qualify as fair use, no matter what. However, what the publishers and authors (represented by the Author's Guild) are claiming, is that any complete digital scan without the permission of the copyright holder, for whatever purpose (especially one when the book is borrowed rather than purchased) is a copyright infringement. Google is arguing that since they are not using the books directly, but simply using the scans to provide fair use snippets, it meets enough of the 4 rules the courts use to determine fair use. Most of the books in snippet view are out of print, so it's not likely that snippet view increases sales anywhere near the amount a limited preview does. IANAL, but I think the publishers and especially the authors will win a pyrrhic victory should the courts decide in their favor.

Justice of Solomon

[robbiedo]

This is where noew legal doctrine arises, and why there is so much conflict about the issue between fair use and copyright. Two things will happen.

1. The courts and/or Congress will resolve the issue
2. The parties will resolve the conflict outside judicial/legal channels

In all likelihood the courts will hammer out what "fair use" means in the digital age.

Yes, Google does make money off the others copyrighted materials, but the key here is they are not selling the material, but facilitating an already accepted "fair use' in a novel manner. Whether the courts accept this legal interpretation or not is debatable, thus the conflict. There is good case law, and legal standing for both sides. The key here is the lack of clarity because of conflicting rights and claims under excisting law which had never anticipated.

If the publishers are smart, they will work together to work out a deal with Google, thus protecting their copyrights and introducing another revenue stream. It just depends on how greedy they want to be. The old story of 100 percent of nothing comes to mind.

You are incorrect, they ARE "on consignment"

[Anonymous Coward]

The 2 bookstores I have as customers BOTH receive their books on credit, sell what sells & return the remainder after a stated amount of time.
The "bill" is settled on a monthly basis and only books that are sold are paid for.
Mind you, These are both small independent booksellers, I can only guess that the big chains have even more favorable deals with publishers.

I think it increase book sales

[Anonymous Coward]

Books are thick, and it is uncomfortable to read a book on a computer.
I think that people can search for stuff in books and find books, and then read some, but then I think people will buy the book because its better and easier to read a real book than read a book on the Internet.

Though on Internet you can search through the book, that is very useful.

But scanning book is good idea, because it digitally preserves the books so they don't get lost and it makes all the data of books searchable so its for the better of mankind.

A normal book store?

[drac0n1z]

How is this different than browsing an actual book store and flipping through the pages?

Re:A normal book store?

[lposeidon]

there is no one yelling at you for reading the entire book while sitting int he middle of the isle at the bookstore. google is granting access to a few pages not the whole book. so its more restrictive than the bookstore or libary. a libaray is public, so is the net.. u can make copies of books there only paying for the copy machine fees... (granted is similar to piracy.. one person buys the item and millions have access) there is noone stopping you there. why does everyone have a grudge against anything on the net?

Re:But there's no such thing as universal rights

[Anonymous Coward]

You've obviously never heard any of the notion that rights aren't number one. Many (?most) parts of the world it is obligation to family, kinship group whatever. Not to mention most of the world does live under, nor, it would seem, particularly cares to live under the rules of the constitution. Rights were dreamt up by someone. Just like the Bible, just like all those books.

I suggest it follows that somebody equally dreamt up the idea that copyright exists, and if you think it matters, then you're dreaming.

The four factors of fair use

[shimmin]

Copying is infringement, unless it is fair use. In the U.S., the determination of fair use rests upon a "four factors" test, and it is not at all obvious that Google can pass that test.

1. The nature of the copyrighted work. Not all creative works are equally creative. A novel is more creative than a world almanac. Google has copies all kinds of works, some of them highly creative.

2. The amount taken. While Google shows users only a few pages at a time, it has made a copy of the entire work.

3. The effect upon the market for the copyrighted work. Google can probably show that they have not harmed, and have even increased in some cases, sales of the copied works. But this alone is not a defense against infringement.

4. The purpose and character of the use. How "transformative" is the use. This will probably be the factor on which any lawsuit that makes it to trial stands or falls. Artistic criticism, satire, etc. are all protected as fair use because they are transformative: the copied material is placed in a new creative context, and therefore has meaning not present in the copied work. Now from one point of view, aggregating all the copied works into a searchable database is highly transformative because it enables the copied works to be used in ways that they could not be used before. A court could come down on Google's side with this argument. It would, however, be a relatively novel argument because traditionally, "transformative" has related to the use's creative content: the addition of search is useful, but not in an artistically creative way. Google's copying was verbatim copying. Google has added to the utility, but not the creative content of the work, and a more traditional interpretation of precedent would come down against Google on this factor, usually the most important part of a fair use defence.

What do people want books for?

[brainburger]

This question is so silly it beggars belief.
*Of course* people will be more likely to buy a book if they know that the contents include the information that they want. Duh....

Robots Exclusion Standard revisited

[jdbartlett]

There is no RES-equivalent for printed material. Publishers are assuming that the RES-equivalent for printed material is copyright. That is a matter for the courts to decide; and don't forget, most websites also bear a copyright notice yet they must still inform search engines that they do not want to be indexed. Perhaps the courts will ultimately decide upon an independent "Do Not Scan" books list (like the "Do Not Call" list, another list we have to manually add our numbers to). Not for me to speculate.

Still, I'm not certain you have a point: the "burglary" analogy simply doesn't apply. Firstly, Google did not intrude upon anyone's property to scan these books: they did so with the full cooperation of several university libraries. Secondly, Google did not steal either from the publisher or from the libraries: mere copies of the original material were made and distributed within the organization (it remains to be proven that publishers suffered financial injury as a result of this). At no point was the full text of any book made available to the public, all complete copies were handled internally for indexing use only. Small samples of some books are made available online, which surprised me. IANAL, and even if I were, I suspect I wouldn't want to bet on the outcome of the upcoming court case.

Perhaps taking photographs of the external appearance of people's houses and posting small parts of them online (a couple of windows and maybe the front door) applies slightly more, but not really: there is no matter of copyright breach, though perhaps there is breach of other laws.

I don't think there is a truly apt analogy for the current situation; if there were, it would be used in the current case and could probably be used to predict the outcome of the current case. I haven't heard the full complain from these publishers and copyright holders, and am sure we won't until the matter goes to the courtrooms. I find it hard to imagine how they have suffered financial loss from Google's actions, but I'd rather hear them out before judging either party as thieves.

some publishers violate spirit of copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

The first thing I saw when I tried the Google book search was a book old enough to be in the public domain that carried a new copyright notice from the reprinting publisher. That strikes me as wrong. If it is a derived work, modified sufficiently to qualify for a new copyright period, they should say so and not claim it is the original work. If it is not, it should not carry a copyright notice.

Why are anarchist's comments so...

[Anonymous Coward]

choatic? If your point is true, then why did you respond? Afterall, it doesn't matter.

The other difference is that...

[deesine]

the book stores make money off you browsing through their books. Some of that money makes its way back to the publishers. In the case of Google, none of that money goes to the publisher.

Infringement of right does not destroy that right

[TTK Ciar]

Without government you would only have the "rights" that you could defend for yourself. If someone bigger, stronger, and meaner came along your "right" to life, liberty, and property would disappear completely.

No. A right is a condition which must be present in a society, in order for life in that society to be just. The act of "someone bigger, stronger, and meaner" infringing on your rights does not make that right go away. That infringement does not render the infringed condition any less necessary to justice. It is merely creating an unjust situation.

All rights have to be defended. Having a right does not guarantee you the power to resist infringement. Rights have no power, none whatsoever. Power -- be it power to defend a right, or power to infringe upon a right -- comes from our own resourcefulness, from community efforts, or sometimes even from government. If you want to enjoy your recognized rights, then you'd better empower yourself.

-- TTK

Copyrights on Intellectual Property?

[skywire]

Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?

Aside from the unfortunate false dichotomy that so many have pointed out, there is another major flaw in that sentence. It is incoherent to speak of "copyrights on intellectual property". The copyright in a work (the exclusive right granted by the state to copy the work) is intellectual property. The work itself is NOT intellectual property, notwithstanding the intentional misuse of the phrase by the likes of the RIAA and the MPAA. They like to call works of art "intellectual property" because it has the effect of making their false claims that copying those works is "stealing" sound plausible.

It's a question of fact

[mooncaine]

The question asked whether I thought sales increased -- which is a question about a fact. Only someone with the data can answer it, and it's not a matter of opinion, is it?

Everything else is sheer conjecture -- extremely sheer, since none of us are equipped with data that can be applied to the answer.

Don't judge a book; buy its cover.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an interesting debate. Though it is true that google is only providing a limited subset of the text it may be possible to sequence the entire copyrighted work from subsets of the text provided by similar sites if a saturation level of these sites existed. While the general public are capable of reading or borrowing books at libraries and bookstores, they are for limited windows of time -- that is to say that if a library has 1 copy of some book it may be used by any number of people but still only so long as the library retains that 1 copy of the book and never with a higher saturation level (here meaning number of reads per day) as if one person owned the book and read it repeatedly.

By reproducing the content (even in part) google provides a persistent copy to searchers that may be viewed with a high saturation level. This is technically good for the information contained in the novel, for the prestige of the author, and for sales of certain books. However, there are some books whose content is similar to an infomercial in that what is contained within the book does not match what is advertised on the cover. The goal of these books is generally to prevent informed purchase (since knowing the contents of the book would preclude purchase). There are other books whose content is "cutting edge", meaning that they serve as reference books of a particular topic that is currently widely unknown or unstudied. As the topic becomes more mainstream, these books become less useful and their sales die out. This is similar to publishing patterns associated with new technologies -- the probability of sale of the book decreases with time on the shelf. In the case of technological reference books, high publicity generated through google could be essential for sales -- or devastating in the case of "reference books" that are actually just printed and bound "man pages".

I believe that the fundamental problem is that many publishers would prefer that their users purchase books "blind" -- without any knowledge of the subject matter covered in the book or the contents of the book itself. As book sales push to the internet through amazon and other such online bookstores the probability of getting a "blind purchase" in which the customer buys the book based only on some reviews and the cover increases -- which is beneficial for publishers who
deal in junk due to the inability of the user to ascertain the content or quality of the book from a cursory view of its binding.

They say "don't judge a book just by its cover" but I believe that many publishers read that sentence as "Don't judge a book; just buy its cover!".

No!

[bradle]

I think google is not violating any copyright law. Its beneficial for publishers.

Google ads

[falconwolf]

I think it'd be inappropiate for Google to have advertisments on these pages that don't go directly to the producer and as I said before I think the ads should be free to the producer.

With the exception of the above I generally agree. Google is putting in the effort and cost to put scanned books online which increases revneue for publishers, for that they should be able to benefit via either selling ads or getting a percentage of sales. Otherwise the publisher or writer can do it themself. Actually some writers do do this, especially new and long established writers. Those in other fields of art do the same, such as photographers.

As to the copyright registration fee I'd make it free the first year, $1 the second year, and doubled every year after the second year until it was no longer worth paying for

I could go along with this as it would be cheaper to get copyright protection to start with.

Falcon

Re:Google ads

[MikeFM]

I think Google would be compensated by driving extra traffic to their site so they shouldn't need to get any kind of payment for having currently copyrighted works available.

Re:Google ads

[falconwolf]

I think Google would be compensated by driving extra traffic to their site so they shouldn't need to get any kind of payment for having currently copyrighted works available.

And how are they being compensated?

Falcon

Re:Google ads

[MikeFM]

Google becomes an even better resource, more people use Google, and Google sells more ads elsewhere on their site. Pretty clear cut. You could also let them place ads for things like purchasing the book on Amazon etc but I think the creator of the content should be able to opt-out of such ads while their copyright is valid.

"God" and the USA Constitution

[falconwolf]

The constitution acknowledged rights that were believed to have been granted by god. This is consistent with the branches of philosophy that formed the foundation of politics in America. This is consistent with the branches of philosophy that formed the foundation of politics in America.

Actually no where in the Constitution of the USA is the word "God" used. The word "Lord" is used in one place, where the date is given, as in "in the year of our Lord" which was the standard way of stating the date when it was signed. And the Constitution was based on the Iroquois Confederacy, which had it's own constitution. As for the DOI, Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson specifically wrote "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" then men "are endowed by their Creator". As Thomas Jefferson said, "religion is a private matter" and that's exactly where it should remain. Also the branch of philosophy that formed the foundation of politics in the USA was in part The Age of Enlightenment.

Falcon

this country was founded on Christian principles

[falconwolf]

It was not intended as flamebait, but it is the simple truth. This country was founded on Christian principles. It is upon the Christian God, Jesus Christ as we read in the Bible, that this country was founded.

The USA wasn't based on any Christian principles. The most important principle it was based on was no taxation without representation. Many of the USA's Founding Fathers weren't even Christian in the sense it's used today, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and others were Deists. Though he believed in Jesus, Thomas Jefferson didn't believe he was the son of "God", instead he believed Jesus was a great teacher. Jefferson took the Bible, cut out all of the talk of Jesus performing miracles and such and created his own Jefferson's Bible. And as he wrote his son, "religion is a private matter" and that's where it should stay. In the DOI, Declaration of Independence, he wrote "Nature and Nature's God". Later he used "creator". As for the USA Constitution, which was based on the Iroquois Confederacy, "God" appears nowhere and "Lord" is used once where the date is written as in "in the year of our Lord" which was the standard way of writing dates back then.

Falcon

My $.02

[LongTimeReader]

To begin with Google is allowing exerpts from books to viewed, NOT the whole book. Teachers and others are allowed to make copies of parts of books for a class. The only difference is the person already owns an original copy. In reality Google is providing FREE advertisement for every single publication they have scanned in. Anyone will tell you advertisement = increase in sales. If your book gets increased sales then you are being paid from Google indirectly. If you do not, then either your work is poor or not enough people care about your information to make a difference (or they already own it). I think a large part of the fear for Publishers is similar to the RIAA, paridigm shift.
Many of the books from the libraries I am sure are out of print though not out of copyright.

So does O'Reilly

[davecb]

They experimentally released "Using Samba" under a free license, and found to their surprise that despite bing about the fourth book into that market, it jumped off the shelf.

People were using it as an on-line reference and printing snippets to carry around. Printing the whole book was inconvenient, so people went out and bought copies.

Which pleased me immensely!

--dave