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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

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.

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.

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...)

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.

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.