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Google's Plan For Out-of-Print Books Is Challenged
Death Metal writes to tell us that a growing tide of complaints are being piled at Google's feet in response to a far-reaching settlement that some feel will grant the giant too much power over the "orphan books" they have been scanning into digital format. The settlement could give Google near-exclusivity with respect to the copyright of orphan works — books that the author and publisher have essentially abandoned. They are out of print, and while they remain under copyright, the rights holders are unknown or cannot be found. "Critics say that without the orphan books, no competitor will ever be able to compile the comprehensive online library Google aims to create, giving the company more control than ever over the realm of digital information. And without competition, they say, Google will be able to charge universities and others high prices for access to its database. The settlement, 'takes the vast bulk of books that are in research libraries and makes them into a single database that is the property of Google,' said Robert Darnton, head of the Harvard University library system. 'Google will be a monopoly.'"
The settlement, 'takes the vast bulk of books that are in research libraries and makes them into a single database that is the property of Google,' said Robert Darnton, head of the Harvard University library system. 'Google will be a monopoly.'
Why is it that books -- of all things -- should be the last thing to be digitized?
... I'm not even going to get into the jump they
see in sales when their books are digitized.
Your resistance is futile. It perplexes me that you -- a university librarian -- cannot see what is so obvious to me but I will spoon feed it to you. We live in a capitalistic society where supply rises to meet demand. I am a ravenous consumer of books and for sometime have desired an all-encompassing repository of books. You, the writers guilds, the publishers, the industry as a whole have failed to meet this demand for sometime now. Unfortunately for you, the early bird gets the worm. The early bird being Google, the worm being my rewarding eyeballs and possibly pocketbook. I may have been the minority of your consumers but that has changed and it is no longer you against a few nerds. It's you against the world. You will lose. Your industry has successfully prevented this. Why, I'm not quite sure. Greed? Stupidity? There are so many good words to pick from.
You will have to forgive me when I lack sympathy for your position on the books your archaic publishing system fails to make available to me. Oh no, no one will ever be able to publish them now! Alas, woe is me. Instead of being permanently unavailable to me, they will soon be available to everyone
If Google's inevitable monopoly is nigh, why don't you draw up your own business plan to garner venture capital and get all the universities to back you on it? Google's taking a risk and in the end, it's going to be good for the end consumer.
Either shit or get off the toilet. You had your chance, you squandered it. This should have been started almost a decade ago and completed five years ago. I'm sick and tired of the greed factor inhibiting such a useful tool for mankind. As head of an ivy league university library, I would have guessed support for what could well be the modern digital version of Alexandria before it was burned. I'm shocked a librarian would take this stance.
My work here is dung.
Honestly, this seems like Google-bashing for its own sake. Who else is making a serious effort to get a hold of these orphan books and put them out there? Last I checked, absolutely no one.
If the choice is a monopoly over the digitized copy of these books, or letting them fade into obscurity un-digitized, do we really want to choose option B?
If these books are truly orphaned, it would be vastly preferable if Google were able to find it in themselves to donate some of their vast resources to putting the works up on Project Gutenberg.
That would go a long way towards telling the world that their intentions are honest.
While the creation of such a database would be a good thing, in my mind, I do not think it anyone should have sole control of the works contained there in; at least not for very long. I admire and respect the financial burden such a system will cost to create and maintain, particularity during the starting phases.
However I feel that if Google are to be given any rights over works as the ones mentioned then it should be for a limited time only. Perhaps as a reward for taking the initiate and as way for them to profit from their endeavour. But as I said, only for, say 5-10 years, after that the rights to any such material should be freely available to everyone.
In any regards I would consider any sort of long-term or permanent rights given to Google would be a very bad thing.
The Long Now Foundation
Your rant may well be spot on in terms of the general attitude of librarians. But please note what the man actually said:
The settlement, 'takes the vast bulk of books that are in research libraries and makes them into a single database that is the property of Google,' said Robert Darnton, head of the Harvard University library system. 'Google will be a monopoly
Given that specific bit you quote, the man is concerned about Google being the exclusive source of access to these books; he's not expressing fear that his industry is going away, but that what's replacing it will have less freedom of access. You can debate if that's the case or not, but at least address what the man's talking about.
The settlement, 'takes the vast bulk of books that are in research libraries and makes them into a single database that is the property of Google,
Funny. It sounds like Google is going to steal the soul of these book and jail them in their databases. Hehe. There is no logic in this argument. The books are still available at the respective libraries. What is the problem in making them available at other place?
I guess I don't see why Google has a monopoly at all. Does anyone know how Google managed to get exclusive rights to orphaned books especially when, by definition, the owners of the materials weren't present for any negotiations? Why not just open the books up to everyone, including Google. If Google decides to be evil, someone else can pay to have the books scanned and charge whatever they want for them. Alternatively, just put it in the settlement that Google cannot charge for access to the orphaned material.
It really doesn't seem like this should be that hard. There's an audience that wants access to books that no one is expecting royalties on; in an age of unlimited free copying, that should be a no brainer.
What a load of FUD!
- Google isn't charging for access.
- Universities do charge for access (or membership).
- Why wouldn't libraries find their own copies of orphaned books and include them in their catalog?
What is really in danger here is the university library business model: charge a premium for things that should be open to the public.
Far too many establishments seek to control access to information / and thus knowledge. I for one hope Google scans as many books/papers as possible. At least we'd be able to find them.
"no competitor will ever be able to compile the comprehensive online library Google aims to create"
Um, why not? If something is *out* of copyright entirely (not merely out of print, but actually in the public domain because the copyright term has expired) what exactly is stopping competitors from copying the same book and putting it on the web? I've seen plenty of examples of 19th-century books done that way -- people interested in those works sitting down with a scanner and laboriously scanning each page, then putting them on the web. Google a monopoly? Hardly, when every shmoe with a copy of the book and a scanner can duplicate it.
Oh, and university libraries are the *last* people that should be complaining about this, given that they're the ones with huge collections and they COULD HAVE DONE THE SAME THING decades ago, and still could now, if they wanted to serve their customers better. Years ago they should have gotten off their lazy posteriors and scanned *everything* in their library that is out of copyright. EVERYTHING. It means they could put the books in long-term storage (save money on shelf space), preserve the books better (no broken brittle paper or book bindings from further handling), and deliver copies of these old and rare works via interlibrary loan at far less expense and time (and wear-and-tear) than running them through a photocopier over and over again. At the very least they should be doing this only once, and then saving the copy digitally. It's freaking obvious.
Now they want to complain because google is doing their job for them? Sure, there's an important legal difference between "orphan works" and "copyright expired", but, really, why couldn't libraries have pushed for more flexibility with "orphan works" a long time ago? Some kind of broad, general license could have been negotiated. And why haven't they generally made all expired works available electronically, and let google walk into the market unchallenged?
There's hardly grounds for complaining about something they should have been doing a long time ago.