Library Groups Ask DOJ To Oversee Google Books

adeelarshad82 writes "Three library associations have asked the Justice Department to oversee Google's plans to create a massive digital library, so as to prevent excessively high pricing for institutional subscriptions. They said that there was unlikely to be an effective competitor to Google's massive project in the near term. They also asked for academic author representation on the Registry board. Google's plan to digitize millions of books has been criticized by a variety of sources and has recently been shut down in France."

Comments

Why do I get

[OverlordQ]

Why do I get the feeling that if it came down to it, it would be these library associations who would be charging large amounts of money to access their archives rather then Google.

Re:Why do I get

[Ethanol-fueled]

You're right. This isn't about fair prices for consumers, it's about control. Why should I have to pay just to read a paper which was funded with my tax dollars?

They probably think that people will use Google to "steal" what should be in the public domain to begin with. They think that it will ruin their business, just like how the internet "ruined" the newspaper business.

Re:Why do I get

[lorenlal]

I don't think so. I mean, most libraries exist to provide free or low cost access to as much of this information as they can.

I wonder if the library association is interested in this because they worry about their own existence?

Personally, I don't think this is a terrible idea. I mean, many of us don't doubt Google's intentions... But I like this sort of mindset when someone has a de facto monopoly. I'd rather err on the side of suspicion and actually put emphasis protecting competitors.

Re:Why do I get

[spikenerd]

Well said. The public pays the taxes that support all of the government necessary to enable Copyright. The public, therefore, rightfully owns those works after a limited time. By extending Copyright, they effectively robbed all of us of our rightful property. What hypocrisy for them to crack down on "piracy".

Re:Why do I get

[Korin43]

But in this case they will have a monopoly simply because no one else has bothered to do what they're planning to do. Why should they be punished for being the only ones who want to digitize everything? I read constantly about how horrible it will be that Google will be the only ones doing this, but if people actually thought competition would help, there would already be a competitor.

Re:Why do I get

[DarkofPeace]

I agree, by the logic everyone is using, no one should do anything new because they would have a monopoly until someone copied them. The whole point is that Google is trying something no one else has bothered to do, and anyone who wants to put the money and effort can duplicate. The problem is having to drag the old school kicking and screaming into the new millennium.

Re:Why do I get

[Trepidity]

That's certainly the precedent set by JSTOR, a more traditional non-profit initiative with closer ties to libraries. An individual not affiliated with a subscribing institution basically can't get access, outside a few narrow exceptions (like access to a specific journal if you're an individual subscriber to the paper version of the journal). They won't even allow public access to old journals that are in the public domain! Google so far is being much more public-friendly.

Re:Why do I get

[Daniel Dvorkin]

This isn't about fair prices for consumers, it's about control. ... They probably think that people will use Google to "steal" what should be in the public domain to begin with.

I think you've got it exactly backwards. Here's the key line from TFA:

The library groups also express "great disappointment" that the DOJ did not not urge the parties to require representation of academic authors on the Registry board, even though academic authors wrote the vast majority of the books Google will include in its database, and those authors--unlike those in the Authors Guild---"probably would want the Registry to price the institutional subscription in a manner that maximizes public access rather than profits."

Get that? The library associations are the good guys here. Most librarians are very much in favor of public access (it kind of goes along with the whole concept of a library) and academic librarians in particular are really sick of seeing their limited budgets eaten up by absurd journal costs. What they're worried about, I think, is that Google will end up as a partner with the publishers in making it more expensive for people to get access to information which, as you correctly point out, they've already paid for with their taxes. Whether or not this concern is justified, I don't claim to know, but it's certainly worth raising the issue. And speaking as an academic, I can say that they're absolutely right about what academic authors in general would want. I'll never make a dime on any article I publish in a journal, and that's fine; the whole point of writing journal articles is to publicize the work.

Re:Why do I get

[pjt48108]

Because that's exactly how it would be. I used to work in libraries. They're just suffering an existential crisis, and will react this way each time someone comes up with a better idea than they can make good on themselves.

Re:Why do I get

[martin-boundary]

no one else has bothered to do what they're planning to do

What, you mean no one else has bothered to break the law? There's a reason why Google have the biggest scanned collection, and it's this: they got their collection illegally.

Surely you're not arguing that breaking the law is innovation? There's the reason why Google has no competitors on this.

Copyright doesn't allow *anybody* to scan all the books in a library and make them available online to the public willy nilly. Google got sued for it, and will continue to get sued for it and all the other copyright infractions they do on a daily basis, you can bet on that.

This is a social problem which has no proper solution other than reducing dramatically the copyright laws.

what?

[larry bagina]

If the institutional subscription is more expensive than what they're doing now, maybe they shouldn't use it. If it's less expensive, then what's the problem?

Re:what?

[TubeSteak]

If the institutional subscription is more expensive than what they're doing now, maybe they shouldn't use it. If it's less expensive, then what's the problem?

The problem is that google will have a monopoly.
Instead of waiting for the free market to screw things up, the librarians are being proactive about seeking oversight.

Good Grief.

[Frosty Piss]

Maybe Google should take their ball and go home. They *are not* required to digitize millions of book for they general perusal of mankind, if they don't want to. Let these selfish "library groups" wallow in the absence of Google Books.

Re:Good Grief.

[couchslug]

Maybe Google should do what it will, and tell the people who run libraries to piss up a rope.

Libraries sell off or throw away many books so they have space for new ones. With digitization, there is no need to sacrifice old material.

Re:Good Grief.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has a sweetheart deal that no one else on the planet can get. They worked the writers guild and court system in such a way as to give themselves the rights to all this material in one swoop. Anyone who wants to compete with them would be required to find / negotiate with each copyright holder to get them to give them access. This is a major barrier to any competition.

Re:Good Grief.

[Lemmy Caution]

What Google gets out of this is the right to include all the content of most books ever written in their search results. That's a huge deal that would secure Google's position as the ultimate search engine. Google isn't doing this out of the kindness of their hearts.

Re:Good Grief.

[lwsimon]

And their self-interested motives make their actions less beneficial how?

Re:Good Grief.

[JohnFluxx]

I think you're missing how beautifully google did this.

Google started scanning books, somewhat illegally. A _class action_ suit was then filed against google, by _some_ book writers but on behalf of _all_ book writers. This is the key point here. The purpose of a class action lawsuit is that you don't tie up the courts for years while every single person individually sues some company for something that they did wrong. Instead you have one big lawsuit and, and here's the kicker, no more lawsuits are allowed after that.

So, google gets sued in this class action lawsuit, and comes to an agreement that they can scan the books. Again, the class action lawsuit is speaking on behalf of _every_ person that ever has or will write a book. Think about that for a moment.

Say that you now write a book, and Google and some other company scan that book. You wrote this independently and have nothing to do with any guild or anything. You _cannot_ sue Google, but you _can_ sue the other company. This is the wonderful situation that Google is now in.

This is the strangeness of the situation. For another company to do the same thing, they would have to do something established as illegal, then try to entice a class action lawsuit, then try to come to the same arrangement. It's pretty risky!

No competition?

[SuperKendall]

Google is already being undercut.

(may not want to follow link at work due to ads on site).

There are lots of people digitizing books, for free - so there's already some pressure on Google to be reasonable about pricing, even if they will probably have a much more comprehensive selection.

Re:No competition?

[Anonymous Coward]

From your link, I clicked one of the top results, and the note was:

Recreated as best as I could from memory and information I was able to locate through Google Book Search.

No competition?

Re:Wait just a minute here

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The DoJ is already in their business, by virtue of the settlement. What the librarians are trying to do is limit the damage which this in-their-business-ness may do. It's not analagous at all to someone who bitches about the cops but then calls 911 at the first sign of trouble. It's more like someone who was once tasered for asking an officer why he was getting a speeding ticket trying to figure out, the next time he gets pulled over, what he can do to avoid it happening again.

Competition is easy

[Gothmolly]

Just don't use their service. Everyone survived w/o it before, so its clearly not something you must have. If you decide to use it, STFU about the price.

Next ?

No respect for the law

[TapeCutter]

Yeah, Ptolomey had no respect for the law either, first he nicked Egypt from the Pharohs and then he had an army of scribes copy all the scrolls he could find and stuffed them in his so called "library" of Alexandria. Eratosthenes and other authors tried to sue but lawyers hadn't been invented so he was SOL.