U of Michigan and Amazon To Offer 400,000 OOP Books

eldavojohn writes "Four hundred thousand rare, out of print books may soon be available for purchase ranging anywhere from $10 to $45 apiece. The article lists a rare Florence Nightingale book on Nursing which normally sells for thousands due to its rarity. The [University of Michigan] librarian, Mr. Courant said, 'The agreement enables us to increase access to public domain books and other publications that have been digitised. We are very excited to be offering this service as a new way to increase access to the rich collections of the university library.' The University of Michigan has a library where Google is scanning rare books and was the aim of heavy criticism. (Some of the Google-scanned books are to be sold on Amazon.) How the authors guild and publishers react to Amazon's Surge offering softcover reprints of out of print books remains to be seen."

Comments

Wow...

[vishbar]

So how many books cover functional programming?

Re:Wow...

[jc42]

Also, in the 17th century, the term 'computer' used to refer to the human being performing the actual calculations (for calculating the trajectory of cannon balls for example).

That usage only died out recently. My wife likes to tell people that her first job title was "computer". This was around 1970, when she got a job working for a civil engineering firm, using their fancy new desktop calculators to do the math for surveying work. She actually only got out of that line of work in the mid 1980s, when the calculating was finally being moved over to those fancy new desktop computers. The use of "computer" as a job title had died out by 1980, though, as it had by then become widely known as the name of a kind of electronic device and was thus inappropriate to describe a human.

Now she does computing work for medical organizations, which are finally being dragged kicking and screaming into the computer age. Her iMac is more powerful, and has more pixels on its screen, than any in use at her office. But it'll probably still be some years before your typical MD understands what can be done with those newfangled electronic gadgets.

And the Kindle?

[dmomo]

We've been pushing to go from Paper to Digital. It's interesting that they're going in the opposite direction here. The article has no mention of the Kindle. I find it hard to believe that the Kindle doesn't play some big role in this. Perhaps they will offer these books for free on the Kindle to help push the device? Personally, I think they should be online and free.

Public domain trampled on again

[Dunbal]

So Amazon is going to be so nice as to offer us the chance to PURCHASE what actually belongs in the public domain? Wow. I am impressed and excited.

Re:Public domain trampled on again

[Dunbal]

They are offering you the chance to PURCHASE their labor spent scanning the books.

      And as soon as someone decides to type up the contents of one of the books and put it online, what happens to their business model then? Or are they going to claim, like a certain museum in the UK, that although the copyright on the original work has expired, the copyright on their "scans" is brand new?

      This is a dangerous idea, because it will either cost Amazon money since they won't be able to maintain their business model on expired works, or (the most likely scenario) the public domain will lose once again as courts end up deciding that this is a valid method to perpetuate copyright for all time, by making copies of your work the night before copyright expires.

Re:Public domain trampled on again

[eldavojohn]

This is a dangerous idea, because it will either cost Amazon money since they won't be able to maintain their business model on expired works ...

You are extremely misguided in your analysis of this situation. To address your immediate concerns, the books have been scanned digitally. What's done is done. Amazon's Surge process is print on demand. So there's no loss of anything right now. Not one sale could be made and little cash would be lost as no books would be printed. Granted, these soft cover bindings aren't the nicest books, they're books. And you're also overlooking the fact that now libraries can have public domain books in physical copy on the cheap. Let's look at the FAQ:

Q. What is provided for in the agreement with BookSurge, part of the Amazon group of companies?
The University of Michigan will make thousands of books -- some rare and one-of-a-kind -- available on Amazon.com as reprints on demand. BookSurge will use the digital copies of the original works from the U-M Library collection to create a soft-cover reprint and mail it to customers.

Q. How long does the agreement run?
The initial agreement is for two years.

Q. Is this an exclusive agreement?
No. The agreement does not limit the U-M to offering reprints only on Amazon. In the coming year, the university will be extending the program and working with other potential printing and distribution partners.

Q. How will this work?
The public will be able to search for a title through the U-M Library or on Amazon.com. On the U-M Library Web site, for instance, there will be a "buy this book" link added that will allow users to order a reprint. Anyone with a link to the Internet and a credit card will be able to order reprints.

Q. When will these additional titles be available for purchase?
We expect to have the books available for reprint later this summer. We'll continue to add titles as books are digitized for the next several years.

Q. Where are the original books?
All of the titles offered for reprint are books or other publications that exist in the U-M Library collections. Some are very rare. Some are deteriorating badly and cannot safely be handled. All are being carefully preserved.

Q. Who will buy these reprints?
We think there will be wide interest in public access to these books. History enthusiasts, scholars, students, teachers and other libraries are among those we believe will make use of this new, low-cost reprint service.

Q. What will the reprints cost?
We estimate that costs will range from as little as $10 to about $45 for larger and longer books. Books will be mailed directly to customers.

Q. Who sets the price?
The U-M determines the list price of each book, which will be based on the length and size of the book. Amazon may discount that price, but may not charge more than the list price.

Q. Will the U-M make money on the reprints?
Yes, but that is not the primary goal. We want to make these books more available to the public and to scholars and this agreement accomplishes that. The books will be priced to cover the costs of production and a small profit. The university will use its proceeds to cover the cost of production and some infrastructure costs related to the digitization effort.

Q. Why would Google agree to sales on Amazon?
The university has an agreement with Google to do what it does best: Create digital copies of these books. Now the university has an agreement with a unit of Amazon to do what it does best: Sell books and other items very efficiently on the Internet. We think both are great partnerships and the companies

Re:Public domain trampled on again

[Helios1182]

It will work. The options are 1) spend $10 on Amazon to get a bound copy in the mail, 2) download a copy online and spend $10 printing it at home before stapling it together, and 3) go the Ann Arbor and maybe get access to the only remaining copy of the book at be forced to read it under supervision in a clean room.

I know which one I would choose.

Technically in the Public Domain But,

[dmomo]

I am curious about the right to copy a rare public-domain book. Let's say someone owns the only copy of a book. They do not allow anyone else to scan it. But, they do scan it themselves.

Do they own the "scan". Can they copyright that? Could they sue me for copying their scanned version? Suppose they ran it through some OCR. Then they changed the layout but not the text. Now could they use that as a basis from stopping me from copying it? It's their font/layout configuration after all.

I suppose further, I could run their scanned work through my own OCR, and since the text itself is not copyrighted, I could then distribute the text.

Sounds silly and convoluted, but this is the kind of argument we can expect to see as information becomes easy to control and manipulate. And as more and more public domain items come into the light, there will be more and more "stake holders" trying to protect their cash cows.

Re:Technically in the Public Domain But,

[Hungus]

I am curious about the right to copy a rare public-domain book. Let's say someone owns the only copy of a book. They do not allow anyone else to scan it. But, they do scan it themselves.

Do they own the "scan". Can they copyright that?

yes

Could they sue me for copying their scanned version?

Yes

Suppose they ran it through some OCR. Then they changed the layout but not the text. Now could they use that as a basis from stopping me from copying it? It's their font/layout configuration after all.

Yes

I suppose further, I could run their scanned work through my own OCR, and since the text itself is not copyrighted, I could then distribute the text.

no because you used their work without permission An example of this is taking a photo of a work in the public domain. If it is your photo you can reproduce it and use it all you want. If it is someone else's photo you are SOL if you do not have rights to work with their photo.

Sounds silly and convoluted, but this is the kind of argument we can expect to see as information becomes easy to control and manipulate. And as more and more public domain items come into the light, there will be more and more "stake holders" trying to protect their cash cows.

you could however do it anyways and then they would have to prove that you used their copies to create your work. the problem is if it is a one of a kind and they can show you had access to it once again you are SOL.

Re:Technically in the Public Domain But,

[Jurily]

Sounds silly and convoluted, but this is the kind of argument we can expect to see as information becomes easy to control and manipulate.

No, this is what you get for treating information as property. Maybe the law needs to get in sync with reality once in a while.

You can go on and on about how it costs money to create information in whatever form, but as long as it's free to replicate it (since the devices needed are common household items now), you need a different business model other than selling it. I'm generalizing here because it doesn't just apply to literature. Think software, music, movies, etc. That's the beauty of computers: all information can be represented as a sequence of bits, and as such, easily copied and modified. Add in the fact that most people don't have a moral problem with copying, and you have laws that are impossible to uphold without a police state.

Oh, and let's not go into the finer points, like what happens when I write a program, and the compiler output played as audio happens to be a copyrighted song.

Re:Technically in the Public Domain But,

[Hungus]

You may disagree all you want to but you would still be wrong. I was involved in a lawsuit 3 years ago that says otherwise. Scans are considered original works and are copywritable.

Re:Technically in the Public Domain But,

[Hungus]

Only if the original subject is in the public domain otherwise it is considered derivative. I was involved a few years ago with a rather stupid lawsuit where a publisher got ahold of a database containing tens of thousands of scanned pages of documents well into the public domain. (original documents were from the 17th and 18th century) They argued that they could publish the documents as they were in the public domain. The Owner of the scans argued that they were reproducing copyrighted work. The courts agreed with the owners of the original scans.

Re:Technically in the Public Domain But,

[nzodd]

IANAL, but I suspect they would not own copyright on a scan of a public domain work, at least not in the U.S., because of the precedent set down in Bridgeman v. Corel. Corel distributed non-original photographs taken by Bridgeman Art of public domain art works, and Bridgeman sued them, claiming they owned the copyright to those images. According to the decision, because the photographs were slavish copies of public domain works, the photographs themselves had no original element and thus couldn't be copyrighted. as Wikipedia puts it: "Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., 36 F. Supp. 2d 191 (S.D.N.Y. 1999), was a decision by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, which ruled that exact photographic copies of public domain images could not be protected by copyright because the copies lack originality. Even if accurate reproductions require a great deal of skill, experience and effort, the key element for copyrightability under U.S. law is that copyrighted material must show sufficient originality."

not a new thing

[Rogue Haggis Landing]

Other companies have been in the facsimile/reprint business for a while. The best known (at least in the U.S.) is probably Dover Press, but there are others. What makes it interesting is that this is Amazon doing the publishing, meaning that there will be an order of magnitude more titles available than what places like Dover can manage.

My partner has ordered a few facsimile reprints of 17th century theological and philosophical works from Kessinger Publishing, works she wasn't able to get anywhere else. They're just poor facsimiles, almost photocopies, of old works, but even then manage to work in a little incompetence. Their printing of Sir Kenelm Digby's Of Bodies and of Man's Soul to Discover the Immortality of Reasonable Souls has on its cover (and as the title on the Amazon page!) one of the best editorial screw-ups ever.

Re:Tried and True

[the phantom]

Part of the problem is that there are actually few books today that are worth much.

This is not a problem of old==good and new==bad. Start from the assumption that 95% of everything is crap. 95% of the books that were written 400 years ago were crap. However, only the good ones have survived. This gives the impression that older stuff is better, but this is a mistaken impression.

On the other hand, much of the good and valuable stuff from the past is very hard to get ahold of. There are people that would really love to have a copy of Addington's guide to illustrating flaked stone artifacts, but they are difficult to find, as the book has been out of print for years (and is not into the public domain to boot), and those of us that own copies of the book are not likely to give them up. If Amazon wants to get the rights to the book and print off copies on demand, I would be happy to pay them for the service. As I see it, Amazon is attempting to fill a niche. Sure, they make money off of it, but I don't see it as a simple marketing ploy designed to capitalize off of nostalgia for the past.

Juris-whose-diction?

[tepples]

Do they own the "scan". Can they copyright that?

yes

Under what law in what jurisdiction? In the United States, Bridgeman v. Corel excludes photocopies of an uncopyrighted work from copyright because they lack originality.