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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?"
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.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
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.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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...)
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.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
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.
Registered Linux user # 170078
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.
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
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.
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.
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=Cli
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!