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Ursula Le Guin's Petition Against Google Books
Miracle Jones blogs about the petition against the Google Book Settlement created by science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin, winner of five Hugo awards and six Nebulas. Le Guin is urging professional writers who are opposed to the terms of the settlement to sign her online petition before the January 28th deadline. From the petition: "The free and open dissemination of information and of literature, as it exists in our Public Libraries, can and should exist in the electronic media. All authors hope for that. But we cannot have free and open dissemination of information and literature unless the use of written material continues to be controlled by those who write it or own legitimate right in it. We urge our government and our courts to allow no corporation to circumvent copyright law or dictate the terms of that control."
No, she's saying that while copyright on the document is in effect that no corporation shall infringe upon that copyright.
Disney wants "copyright == infinity".
It occurs to me that authoring a book should be a lot like raising a child. You should have the right to full control of your progeny for a little while then it's not "yours" any more. To hold on to that relationship too long is unhealthy for everyone involved, including society as a hole.
This idea that artists control their work forever is unfair to everyone.
It seems to me that Ms. LeGuin is engaging in a bit of doublethink: How exactly is anything "free" while it's simultaneously "controlled"?
(Not to mention, of course, that claiming "legitimate right" is begging the question...)
The free and open dissemination of information and of literature, as it exists in our Public Libraries, can and should exist in the electronic media. All authors hope for that. But we cannot have free and open dissemination of information and literature unless the use of written material continues to be controlled by those who write it or own legitimate right in it.
Her statements here appear contradictory. She says that electronic books should be available as books are available in libraries, but goes on to say that copyright holders must control their dissemination. But copyright holders have no control over the dissemination of books in public libraries!
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
No, she's saying the authors should have control over their work, or whoever they sell those rights to.
I don't have any problem with that. I think the Google deal is a bad one for everyone because A) why should Google have special privileges? Why can't anyone else get the same terms? And B) it doesn't focus on the real problem: indefinite extension of copyright terms and the illegality of DRM circumvention even if the activity would otherwise be legal.
Copyright law is broken. It needs to be fixed, not fiddled with to Google's advantage only.
So, which corporation is more evil when it comes to copyright: Disney or Google? Seems to me that Le Guin is in effect supporting the Disney model.
No.
She's saying that, during the term of a copyright, a corporation should have to actually get permission from the copyright holder to use a writer's work.
The google-model is opt-out-- "unless you specifically contact us and tell us not to, we now have your implied permission to use your work."
I'm not real happy with opt-out models, myself.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
This idea that artists control their work forever is unfair to everyone.
The French would disagree with this. They have single handedly foisted on the world ever longer copyrights since the 19th century. I don't know why the French are this way, but given that they have invented croissants, mayonaisse and champagne, I'm inclined to believe them.
So it looks like the French are our new political football in America. Liberals loved the French when they were anti-war, and now, here we are, conservatives, saying, "hey, look at how great France is", in order to support copyrights.
Oh France! Some Americans will always hate you, but America as a whole will always love you!
This is my sig.
Google is attempting to re-create "public domain" in an industry where Disney is trying to kill it.
In this instance I'm in favour of Google as being the "lesser" evil.
Because Disney is still raking in the revenues on old works, they will continue to pay Congress to extend the copyright period. Public Domain will die. At least this way SOME works will still be available.
"The free and open dissemination of information and of literature, as it exists in our Public Libraries, can and should exist in the electronic media."
ok
"All authors hope for that. But we cannot have free and open dissemination of information and literature unless the use of written material continues to be controlled by those who write it or own legitimate right in it."
huh? you just logically countered your initial statement
either its free, or there's control. i love ursula k leguin. in fact, i noticed cameron ripped her off with the "every plant is a node in a giant neural network" idea in avatar. it was a short story of hers, i forget the name, and she played it like a horror movie instead. but leguin isn't seeing the bigger picture here, despite her prodigious and keen powers of insight as shown in her works of fiction. kinda like the mathematics professor who can't balance his checkbook, i guess
"We urge our government and our courts to allow no corporation to circumvent copyright law or dictate the terms of that control."
i agree 100%. except that already happened many decades ago, and has only gotten worse. existing copyright law no longer serves creators. it serves distributors
such that creators today actually make out better releasing for free, and deriving ancillary revenue streams from their popularity: advertising, endorsements, personalized content, movie deals, etc.
current copyright law will not serve you to make more money than this all-free-on-the-internet model. it will only serve some asshole in a distribution company. a distribution company that serves no function anymore in the world of the internet
the internet has made ip law defunct. and this aids creators: direct interaction with your consumers. the only people that are hurt is the parasitic middlemen in between
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Here is how (I think) I would do it. I start to write a book. I will release a few chapters for free online. I could and would even solicit feedback from these chapters. I now start a bounty. I would want X dollars for my work and a little bit to keep me going. Once I have reached X dollars, I will finish my story and release it as an e-book - free for any and all to read, share and do pretty much anything with besides alter or make money off of. If I fail to reach my bounty - it would be because people didn't want my story - why should I get paid for or release/finish something no one wants? They key to this idea is that I get compensated what I believe I should and get compensated(until a movie studio wants to buy the movie rights). And no one gets denied my literary genius :)
The public does not even need to know how much my bounty is - maybe I would let them know what percentage has been obtained - and if unreached, I would guarantee refunds.
. .
Le Guin does not in fact support the 'Disney model', e.g. here:
http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Copyright.html
she describes the Sonny Bono act as "the recent excessive extension of copyright term by the U.S.A, which has imperilled the international copyright system". She just doesn't want to be screwed over by Google in a land grab deal negotiated by an 'Authors Guild' that doesn't represent her.
Some economic studies done have shown that the original 14/28 year lifespan on copyright produces the most incentive to authors while still allowing the works to become the basis of new works within the lifespan of the original purchasers of that work.
And what's your alternative?
Well, we could start with securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries to promote the progress of science and useful arts. And then after a few years it would go into the public domain and someone could cut all the mind-numbingly boring parts out of 'The Dispossessed' and release a version that's worth reading... no, actually, that's probably impossible. They could at least stick more sex and explosions in there, I guess.
LeGuin wrote some very interesting books. Unfortunately her stance on copyright is a bit too 20th centure to my taste.
Doctorow: "I did this with the understanding that reproducing, for the purposes of commentary, a single paragraph originally published in a noncommercial venue, was fair use under 17USC, the American copyright statute. Ms Le Guin disagrees, and though I haven't heard from her personally, my understanding is that she disagrees on the basis that taking the whole story can't be fair use. I have taken the piece down. The last thing I wanted to do was quote Ms Le Guin against her wishes, and had I known sooner that she objected to being quoted, I would have removed it sooner. " http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/14/an-apology-to-ursula.html
There is a reason they call it the Mickey Mouse Protection Act.
"In addition to Disney (whose extensive lobbying efforts inspired the nickname "The Mickey Mouse Protection Act"), California congresswoman Mary Bono (Sonny Bono's widow and Congressional successor) and the estate of composer George Gershwin supported the act. Mary Bono, speaking on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, said:
Actually, Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution. ... As you know, there is also [then-MPAA president] Jack Valenti's proposal for term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress."
Why are writers and creators of media singled out for loosing everything upon their deaths?
You're not. Anything you physically own before you die will be passed on to your family (local laws permitting), just like any other person on the planet... house, money, car, copies of your books, porn mags, etc.
The real question should be: why are writers and creators singled out for _EXTRA_ rights which aren't given to anyone else? If I die, my kids won't be able to go to my boss and demand that he continues to pay them my salary, why should writers be any different?
New? 162 years? The registration bullshit is of course U.S. only, not elsewhere (1886), and is obviously grossly unfair to those who don't speak the language of bureaucracy.
Neither I nor LeGuin have advocated perpetual extensions, only the author's rights, so I don't see why you bring it up. I don't support perpetual copyrights, nor renewal of copyrights.
Copyrights are a detriment to human progress. When Benjamen Franklin and others created the idea of the public library, it was so that people could free themselves from ignorance and use their new found knowledge to create a better life for themselves and posterity. Now in the year 2010, that dream dream of free knowledge for freedoms sake is very very sick. In the USA, libraries are shutting down earlier and earlier, and the masses are kept satiated with a steady supply of pointless entertainment, and meaningless work. Copyright "rights holders" want to keep you in ignorance and beholden to them for knowledge.
However there is hope on the horizon. Thanks to the up-coming and inevitable e-book revolution, the written word will be free from the printed page, and those that would control those pages. Let us burn down the publishing houses, and give a Kindle to every man, women and child. Those that want to make a living of the work and sweat of others e.g. Publishing houses, the Author's guild, and the descendants of the writers who still want to be Paid 70 plus years after the actual author's body has been eaten by worms should find themselves dead in the street.
Ursula Le Guin did some good work in her day. We should respect Ms. Guin, like we respect a slightly senile and kindly Grandma, but we should not let our lives by run by your old grandparents.
-Strike a blow for freedom today, by downloading an illegal e-book today and reading it.
As per the Bern Convention, French copyright law doesn't apply in America, the French are simply afforded the same copy protections as a US citizen would have when there is a case of infringement of a Frenchman's work in America, and vice versa and for all signatories of the Bern convention. There are minimums set in the Bern convention, but they were in line with what US copyright law already stated at the time, and they were nowhere near the roughly 140 year terms we have now.
US Copyright law was never significantly altered because of the Bern Convention except to extend the copyright protections to non-citizens (specifically, citizens of signatory countries).
The reason we have the outrageous copyright extensions is because large corporations (Disney being the most adamant) lobbied like hell for them. They were never instated based on another country's laws except as an argument for them. It was more like Disney saying "Look, the French do it, why can't we?" and dumbasses in congress actually listening to them.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Neither I nor LeGuin have advocated perpetual extensions, only the author's rights, so I don't see why you bring it up.
Have you asked the copyright owners of 'South Park' for permission to call yourself 'MrHanky'?
Google does not need the settlement if copyright were restored to the original 14 year timeframe! All books older than 14 years should be indexed by google by virtue of being in the public domain. Authors and publishers should play the search engine game like everyone else during that 14 years.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
But the objection that Ursula LeGuin (and others) have to the Google Books deal is nothing to do with the term of copyright or direct control. It's the fact that as part of this settlement Google has decided that 'unless you actually explicitly object, in writing, to our use of your work, you give us implied right to publish.' LeGuin and others are objecting to the idea that /during the term of copyright/ authors should have to 'opt out' of having their works made freely available online, rather than giving them the choice of 'opting in.' This isn't about length of copyright or anything else. But having this method be opt-out rather than opt-in puts authors in a bad spot, especially if they've sold electronic reproduction rights to an eBook publisher and then Google comes along and puts the book up for free because the author didn't opt-out quickly enough.
Many of the authors I know of who object to this are ones who /also/ give away free (or incredibly cheap) eBooks of their work when the work is no longer held by a particular publisher. LeGuin herself has DRM-free eBooks of her own older work available for about $1 each through several eBook sellers, and is actually quite against extensions of copyright. As the forward to the brief explanation of copyright law she has on her website, she refers to:
...the recent excessive extension of copyright term by the U.S.A, which has imperilled the international copyright system.
http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Copyright.html
The problem LeGuin and those signing her petition have is the blanket expectation that anything -- even books which may be under a current publishing contract with some publisher who has bought electronic rights -- is fair game unless the copyright holder explicitly opts that individual title out. I mean, let's be fair, we've all seen that opt-out methods are generally not popular with those they target. How many of us actually liked the logic of opt-out spam, where if you haven't contacted the people to say /not/ to send them spam, then they assume you've given implicit permission to send you spam e-mail?
--Rachel
Copyright is about protecting publishers' rights, not the creators'
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I'm not real happy with opt-out models, myself.
Well, in the case of orphaned works, this is the best option, but Google should not be granted any special privileges or exclusivity over those works.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
The Google settlement sound remarkably reasonably actually.
If you don't like what Google is doing to "your property", then you send them a "Cease and Desist" letter.
What a poor dear you must be to actually have to let people know that your work isn't an orphan anymore.
That really should be the default state of things. We should not have this
stupid, crippling fear that anything that we might create could infringe on
someone else's work and they might be able to come back and shake us down for
more than their stuff is worth.
This isn't just a theoretical problem.
Who is actually supposed to be getting hurt here?
Who is the victim exactly? ...and no I don't think full text search of a book is something that
an author has any right to suppress. Trying to stop such a thing is
intrusive and self-defeating.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If copyright laws were the same way as they were 100 years ago there would be cooperation from the public. But these days copyright has gone way too far in many ways including fair use restrictions as well as lasting for way too many years. Content creators are getting too much protection as it now stands.
The Google settlement sound remarkably reasonably actually.
If you don't like what Google is doing to "your property", then you send them a "Cease and Desist" letter.
It's not reasonable because it places an enormous burden on the rights holder to police the use of his creation, and every time something slips by him, you're effectively saying that it was legal.
It's like saying that, if a cop didn't catch the thief, there was no crime committed.
Copyright law is broken. It needs to be fixed, not fiddled with to Google's advantage only.
And, given last week's Supreme Court decision removing all restrictions on corporations' spending to influence political decisions, how long do you propose we hold our collective breath?
Let's face it, folks. Absent a revolution, we've lost this war. At the behest of five assholes in black party dresses, America has now officially become a plutocracy. Money talks and public interest walks.
Not that that's any great change from business as usual, you understand. It's just official now.
I'd weep for my poor, broken-ass country, if I wasn't so busy trying not to become homeless ...
Check out my novel.
You are right in all of your points. Every last one. ESPECIALLY the 'this should be the default state of things'.
However, you missed one small aspect: I represent JRandomCorporations(0 through 10000). And I have decided that I am going to publish all abandoned works online. But feel free to e-mail or post me a letter if I accidentally publish your non-abandoned work.
The letter you send to 're-up' your copyright should go to the copyright office. Every 10 years sounds fine with me. If you don't re-up, THEN the work is considered abandoned, and becomes public domain.
And funny thing. This used to be the case here in the US. Alas. Lawyers.
Here's the problem. The opt-out approach is entirely necessary to Google's goals in this project, specifically with regards to so-called "orphaned works".
There are many books out there who's copyright status is questionable. For whatever reason, the right's holders cannot be contacted. These works are essentially lost to us. Many were produced in very limited runs in the first place, and there are few copies still floating around. If your library happens to have one, then you can read one of these works -- but otherwise you're out of luck.
While ideally, copyright law could be reformed to put these works into the Public Domain so that they can be reproduced and made available to anyone -- this is not something Google can realistically do.
The opt-out implementation of the settlement gives them a way to put these works back into the public space -- though not quite into the public domain. It gives people a way to access works that are otherwise lost to them. It rescues them from obscurity and dusty bookshelves so that they can once again be read and enjoyed.
And that, in a nut-shell, is why the settlement has to be opt-out instead of opt-in. Call it cheating if you want, but certainly it does far more to benefit everyone than it does to harm authors by forcing the hardship of opting out upon them. Yes, it does feel backwards to have someone say to you "I'm going to do xyz with your stuff unless you say 'no'" -- but at the end of the day, if it only takes you 5 seconds to say "no" and it only happens one time -- it's not that big of a deal.