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Once Again, US DoJ Opposes Google Book Search
angry tapir and several other readers passed along the news that the US Department of Justice has come out against the revised agreement to settle copyright lawsuits brought against Google by authors and publishers. This is a major blow to Google's efforts to build a massive digital-books marketplace and library. From the DoJ filing (PDF): "...the [Amended Settlement Agreement] suffers from the same core problem as the original agreement: it is an attempt to use the class action mechanism to implement forward-looking business arrangements that go far beyond the dispute before the Court in this litigation. As a consequence, the ASA purports to grant legal rights that are difficult to square with the core principle of the Copyright Act that copyright owners generally control whether and how to exploit their works during the term of copyright. Those rights, in turn, confer significant and possibly anticompetitive advantages on a single entity — Google."
Its inevitable that google charges for other peoples still-under-copyright work without their permission?
"His name was James Damore."
The inevitable future being what? That of one where anyone can circumvent copyright (or indeed any other property law by extension) by making an agreement with a body that purports to represent an entire industry, but has no agreement with most of those supposedly represented?
No, it is inevitable that someone is going to eventually do this.
While I fully understand where the copyright holders are coming from, why not work with Google and strike a deal instead of just saying no?
I know, I know...it was a knee-jerk reaction. Still, I feel like this is a missed opportunity for the publishers and the public.
Living With a Nerd
The department continues to believe that a properly structured settlement agreement in this case offers the potential for important societal benefits. The department stated that it is committed to continuing to work with the parties and other stakeholders to help develop solutions through which copyright holders could allow for digital use of their works by Google and others, whether through legislative or market-based activities.
Seemed to me they weren't happy with Google 'ownership' of orphaned works and the fact that it's "opt out" not "opt in" for authors. I guess you could see that as opposition but basically the amended contract failed to satisfy them. That's why they're having a hearing on Feb. 18, 2010.
A deal this big is bound to have lengthy negotiations and investigations as it's truly game changing for everyone involved and the world at large.
My work here is dung.
The inevitable future where most if not all major (and likely minor) written works are available digitally.
The book industry is acting just like the music industry was in the early 2000's. Publishers should try to work with google instead of against them. It's in their (and the public's) best interest.
Living With a Nerd
Because Google just took it upon themselves to violatie other people's copyrights without even consulting with the authors and publishers?
To put it a way the slashtards might understand. Imagine if some company took a bunch of copyrighted GPL code and stripped it of it's original copyright and license because maybe the original author(s) couldn't be found and then slapped a brand new license. And then after getting caught doing this the company gets some bogus settlement where it's decided that other orphaned GPL code's authors only have some arbitrary short time to come forth otherwise this company will take their work and do the same. Then imagine there is a backlash against this from the OSS community. Would you be going on andd on about how the OSS community should be striking a deal instead of saying no? Would be you claiming they are "missing" some opportunity as well?
If Google wants to strike a deal with me, then why are they litigating with other people?
No, Google does not want to strike a deal over my rights with me. Google wants to strike a deal over my rights with those other people.
This is slashdot. We think that copyright terms are way too long and so forth. This isnt the solution.
"His name was James Damore."
Why? They have periodical indexes. What's so different about Google?
Oh these poor book publishers and authors. Oh woe is them. I can search for subjects or bits of text and have results sent back to me including links to Amazon and B&N.
OH THE HUMANITY!
Give us a f*cking break with this nonsense already.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Opt out is evil. It's evil when spammers do it and it's evil when google does it.
If I create a work and hold the copyright on that work, google has no right to provide copies of that work without my permission, and they cannot say, "you can opt out!". That's backwards according to long established law.
This applies to much of what google does - online books, news stories copied from the organizations which create them, and providing cached versions of web pages.
Copyright law does not magically no longer matter if you add "on the internet" to it.
What do the publishers have to do with my copyright?
"His name was James Damore."
Larry and Sergei : Guess the commander in chief's not getting any rides on Larry and Sergei's private party jet any time soon!
Obama : My current private jet is actually much better.
Larry and Sergei : We can play Call of Duty on a giant screen.
Obama : I play Afghanistan and Iraq on mine
This is my sig.
The right solution is to fix the brokenness of copyright law, not to write in a special exemption for a particular company.
For starters, we should have an orphan works provision, and the duration of copyright should be cut back down to reasonable levels.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Property laws and Copyright laws are mutually exclusive. We could completely nullify all copyrights without having any effect on property laws whatsoever.
There is no need for intellectual property anymore. Information is moving and changing to fast. If you lock something up in a patent or have it copyrighted derivative works are set back half a generation or more. Intellectual property laws need a full overhaul to address the change in technology and how information is spread. Personally I don't believe we need any intellectual property restrictions at all; I believe they do more harm than good. I believe that people could fully share all knowledge with each other and that there would still be a market for using that knowledge as a service or to produce a good. I think we should still cite the original creators of the knowledge, but that it should be free to all. We should give credit to the authors of knowledge, but at the same time they shouldn't be able to horde and monopolize knowledge.
If you are independently published, absolutely nothing.
Living With a Nerd
The problem is there are lots of books out there where it is not reasonably practical to get in touch with the copyright holder. Hell with some of them the copyright holder probablly doesn't even know they own it (BTW does anyone what happens legally to a copyright a company owns but doesn't know they own when said company goes bankrupt?).
IIRC Google decided to make such books available anyway claiming that doing so was fair-use (a somewhat tenuous claim) and someone sued them over it, got the case made a class action and tried to settle the case in a very pro-Google way.
I really wonder if they initiated the class action deliberately to let them get things settled in Googles' favour, if they did then it's a blatant abuse of the class action system.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Even if I used a publisher at one time, I can still hold the copyright. Thats between me and the publisher, not between me, the publisher, and google.
"His name was James Damore."
I agree with the government's position on this one. What started out as a lawsuit over the scanning of books (to make them searchable, which I consider fair use) has now become an attempt by Google to gain rights they wouldn't have enjoyed without a contract with copyright holders. The idea of a class action lawsuit is to compensate plaintiffs for an alleged wrong, not to grant defendants new rights that could otherwise only be obtained through contract or legislation. In my opinion, the Author's Guild has sold out the class and acted against its best interests. Indeed, the proposed settlement affects even those authors who aren't members of the Author's Guild and does so in a way that is not in their best interests.
If Google wants access to people's copyrighted works beyond what's allowed by the fair use doctrine, let them negotiate with authors or else let them petition the government for sensible laws on orphaned works. The courts are not the way to secure such broad rights as Google has attempted to do through its settlement with the Author's Guild.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
It could be my ignorance of the way the industry works (which is most likely), but what I'm getting at is this could be used as another avenue for income. What Google did was wrong, yes...but there is still money to be made (not to mention the public gaining even more access to information.)
I'm just curious why people want to shut it down instead of shaping it to work to their advantage. Right now, no one is benefiting...but everyone could be.
Living With a Nerd
Why is it that the copyright maximalists always have to resort to LYING to make a point?
Companies engage in this nonsense all the time. All anyone ever asks of them is that they
comply with the license as soon as someone steps up and tells them to. These companies
don't just use "orphan" works, they use works very well knowning that they are actively
maintained and "belong to someone else".
Yet the all the community at large ever asks of them is to come into compliance.
So from the GPL compliance point of view, there's nothing out of the ordinary with what Google's doing.
Even from the point of view of "orphaned" works, the only entity that ever has standing to persue a
GPL enforcement suit is the "actual owner" or author of the work. This is why the GPL asks for
assignment over to them. Otherwise, they may be no one around that can legally complain when a GPL
work is violated.
On the one hand, Google could end up stealing a few pennies from someone that
can't be bothered to keep their work available. On the other hand, Google is
ensuring that the relevant work is kept around.
What do friends and defenders of literature value more: a few pennies or the actual work?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> copyright owners generally control whether and how to exploit their works during the term of copyright
Which would be much more reasonable if copyright wasn't permanent (by any reasonable measure) now.
Copyright has been changed. As such, the rules governing it need to adjust to maintain the benefit of having it for society.
--- Mercutio was right.
So the inevitable future is that Google gets certain rights which no one else has?
Say someone (be it Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, or some startup company) wants to become a competitor to Google books. He can't. He doesn't have the special rights Google would be given by this agreement. He would still have to hunt down every single copyright owner and get his permission for every single book, while Google can just publish it unless the copyright owner explicitly told them not to. That's a huge competitive advantage for Google, and it's an unfair and anti-competitive one.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Somewhere along the way Google forgot one of its own rules. Their subtle yet ever encroaching methods of "helping" the world seem more of an attempt to ensure that google is firmly entrenched in every aspect of our daily lives. IMHO their approach is just wrong. We have lived for thousands of years without street level photos online of our homes and without navagable photos of the insides of public buildings and retail spaces, do we really need them? Many see them as an invasion of privacy.
I'm already concerned about google wanting to control the storage and distribution of medical records, financial records and other areas they seem determined to control.
It took being bitten by the hand that fed them to finally come out againt their own willingness to censor in China, but still show a willingness to cowtow to political and well connected interests.
Their gmail, adsense, and cookie policies are well lets just say less than privacy friendly.
As for books and other media, this should be a opt in system rather than an opt out. If spam was opt out many more would be protesting but its violation is the same. Many argue its to protect media that would be lost in the future, but the proper fix for that is to change laws not skirt around them because your some big coporation.
I just dont see how "do no evil" and a great desire to become big brother can peacefully co-exist.
Yeah, bits of text, seems to me like excerpts. It's like google is generating an admittedly badly organized ( what do you want from ai? ) essay in response to a query. That essay is the search results and text excerpts. These are clearly referenced as being quoted and like you said, more than a bibliography is given, frikken links to buy the stuff is given. It would seem to me to clearly fall under fair use.
...
Because Google is ignoring thousands upon thousands of people's copyrights who weren't part of the or reprensented by the publishing guild they made the deal with?
First off, let me say that I agree with your post; however, for argument's sake, I'll play devil's advocate. How can putting my "hard work" online for anyone to view at their leisure benefit me financially?
So instead of striking a deal forcing google to not ignore those copyrights and let everyone make some money, you want to force google to not ignore those copyrights and let no one make money?
Living With a Nerd
If only the rest of the world believed what you do, it might work. The problem is that not even a majority of the world believes that; in fact, they believe quite the opposite. Care to elaborate on some real-world circumstances and applications, rather than spewing ideology?
PS: I agree with you; once again, playing devil's advocate to learn a bit more from the people posting here.
Why can't these guys introduce some required opt-in copyright for works older than say 25 years? Make the renewal 20 years long and put a US$5 price on it.
Lawrence Lessig has been arguing for something like this for years... it would solve the orphaned works problem, and Disney probably wouldn't care, so they actually might let it happen.
for the vast majority of author's we're not talking about jk rowling: they're obscure. and their works are, frankly, unknown, out of print, forgotten. such that putting the artificial boundary of negotiating with thousands of random yahoos and working out arcane legal arrangements with all of them is completely unwieldy, unworkable, and monetarily not worth the effort
instead, dump all their work in one big database for free, and these authors, because of much greater ease in accessing their works, see an IMPROVEMENT in their accessibility, marketability, and prominence. imagine fucking that
it gets to a point where copyright law is simply gets in the way of technological, social, and cultural progress
there are numerous examples of people wanting to use obscure works, and finding it daunting and impossible to contact anyone to get the rights. the perverse result being that exposure, and therefore money to be made, is denied to these obscure works. copyright law is BLOCKING the long tail and therefore blocking profit making for authors via ancillary means
i'm so sick of copyright law. it needs to be actively destroyed, not simply ignored. luckily, the internet makes copyright's uselessness easily demonstrated. it's easy to circumvent copyright on the internet. meanwhile, enforcing copyright on the internet is a fool's errand. go at it teenagers, bring this ridiculous house of cards from a dead technological era crashing down. copyright is absurd, a farce, it's dead
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Who said these rights must be exclusive to Google? Aside from the Slashdot community having a general pro-Google bias, I believe it doesn't matter whose company's name is in the story, it's about the freedom of information.
For the same reason I put some of my music online at no charge and with no DRM: Free exposure.
Sure, a bunch of people will download it and not buy the album (when it becomes available)...but they still know my name and are aware of my work. That's as valuable as a sale, just in a less tangible way.
Living With a Nerd
The settlement, combined with the way U.S. law works for class-action lawsuits. At least that is my understanding. I'd love to be proven wrong.
It doesn't matter whose companies name is in the story. It does matter that a single entity gets the extra rights, be it Google, Microsoft, the FSF, or whoever.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The book industry is acting just like the music industry was in the early 2000's. Publishers should try to work with google instead of against them. It's in their (and the public's) best interest.
Substitute "Napster" for "Google" in your statement to see how wrong it is.
Everyone on both sides know the digital transmogrification of the book publishing industry is inevitable. But Google has been the Barbarian at the Tea Party, acting like submission to Mountain View was the best and only route authors and publishers could take. In walks Jobs, looking all natty with his turtleneck and iPad, with whispered promises of doing for the publishing industry with his blend of sleek device and e-commerce what he did for music. Then there's Amazon and Sony, both with vested interests in not killing the golden e-goose of digital book retailing. Google doesn't want this to play out, they're looking to brute-force their way in. Too fuckin' bad, sez me.
As a writer and a reader, I've got no problem with the iTunes-ification of publishing. As a consumer and a citizen, Google scares the hell out of me.
I am interested particularly and especially in the part of the bill which concerns my trade. I like that extension of copyright life to the author's life and fifty years afterward. I think that would satisfy any reasonable author, because it would take care of his children. Let the grand-children take care of themselves. That would take care of my daughters, and after that I am not particular. I shall then have long been out of this struggle, independent of it, indifferent to it. It isn't objectionable to me that all the trades and professions in the United States are protected by the bill. I like that. They are all important and worthy, and if we can take care of them under the Copyright law I should like to see it done. I should like to see oyster culture added, and anything else. I am aware that copyright must have a limit, because that is required by the Constitution of the United States, which sets aside the earlier Constitution, which we call the decalogue. The decalogue says you shall not take away from any man his profit. I don't like to be obliged to use the harsh term. What the decalogue really says is, "Thou shalt not steal," but I am trying to use more polite language. The laws of England and America do take it away, do select but one class, the people who create the literature of the land. They always talk handsomely about the literature of the land, always what a fine, great, monumental thing a great literature is, and in the midst of their enthusiasm they turn around and do what they can to discourage it. I know we must have a limit, but forty-two years is too much of a limit. I am quite unable to guess why there should be a limit at all to the possession of the product of a man's labor. There is no limit to real estate. Doctor Hale has suggested that a man might just as well, after discovering a coal-mine and working it forty-two years, have the Government step in and take it away. What is the excuse? It is that the author who produced that book has had the profit of it long enough, and therefore the Government takes a profit which does not belong to it and generously gives it to the 88,000,000 of people. But it doesn't do anything of the kind. It merely takes the author's property, takes his children's bread, and gives the publisher double profit. He goes on publishing the book and as many of his confederates as choose to go into the conspiracy do so, and they rear families in affluence.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying.
Right now, they are trying to shut down Google's ability to do this. Instead of trying to shut it down, why not hammer out an agreement with Google that requires money up front or a portion of the money generated when someone views their content? Or, even better, with links to where someone can buy the thing.
Google makes a little extra, publishers make a little extra and/or get more eyeballs on webpages where their stuff can be bought, and subsequently authors make a little extra. I fail to see what would be wrong with that.
Living With a Nerd
I specifically put the word financially in there knowing this would be the first response. This isn't about popularity, recognition, fame, fan-base, etc. This is about the money side of things, and I'm asking why any professional writer who lives by selling his written work would make a decision to give his work to the world for free.
But the authors and publishers should get paid for their work correct? I have several titles that I wrote years ago on there and I actually would have had no problem with having them add them for free (my publisher might differ on that). They are all computer books that I feel would be great to give back to the community. But for them to just go out and assume they can do it kind of pissed me off.
I specifically put the word financially in there knowing this would be the first response. This isn't about popularity, recognition, fame, fan-base, etc. This is about the money side of things, and I'm asking why any professional writer who lives by selling his written work would make a decision to give his work to the world for free.
You are implying popularity, recognition, fame, fan-base, etc. have nothing to do with making more money as a professional writer.
Do you really need me to point out what is wrong with that implication?
Living With a Nerd
Which sounds remarkably similar to Sound Exchange collecting streaming audio royalty payments for all musicians, and not just those associated with RIAA/ASCAP
Copyright laws which rely on creating artificial scarcity need to die. Compulsory "mass media" licenses like this are a step down that inevitable path.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
These fuckers are not only corrupt, but shamelessly corrupt.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Yes, please point out what is wrong with my implication.
Write a book, keep tight control, make profit on its sales = $X.
Write another book, put it online for free, make profit on its sales > $X.
Is that really what you're saying? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to be an idiot.
The objection that the DoJ and other companies have is that Google is being granted a wide license by way of a class action settlement. Normally a company can't make a licensing agreement with all copyright owners without contacting each and every one of them. But since this is a class action settlement, all members of the class are automatically opted in to the agreement. Interestingly, all the publishers who sued Google in the first place have opted out of this particular arrangement (they negotiated better deals with Google). So this settlement is being agreed to by a group of publishers who have nothing to lose.
The only way a competitor could get a similar agreement is by being sued and hoping that a similar settlement is the end result.
The proper way for something like this to occur is for Congress to modify copyright law to allow any company to set up a similar service (potentially with a single entity in charge of distributing royalties and managing any opt-in/opt-out process).
I neglected to mention another thing I'm thinking. I understand where you're coming from -- give something out for free, get the recognition, and be able to sell more... IN THE FUTURE. Giving something away gives people no incentive to purchase that specific product. Giving something away would, perhaps, give people the incentive to purchase a product released by you for sale in the future. I agree with this, but to stand by this argument through hell and high water is to imply that every aspiring New York Times best selling author should release their first work for free, in full. Fundamentally, this theory is somewhat contrary to the structure of the IP industry and capitalism in general.
Yes, please point out what is wrong with my implication.
Write a book, keep tight control, make profit on its sales = $X.
Write another book, put it online for free, make profit on its sales > $X.
Is that really what you're saying? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to be an idiot.
Say you are either an obscure or not a top-shelf author. The publisher isn't going to spend a bunch of money on promoting you, so you are left to get your name out there. The hardest part about being a writer is getting people to recognize your name and read your work.
Fans will buy what you write no matter what, but you have to get the fans before that can happen. Slashdot favorite Wil Wheaton is a great example of this. He makes the majority of his income from book and audio book sales...yet try to find his work on torrent sites. You will be suprised at how little of his work is pirated. This is because people love what he does and understand that their support enables him to care for his family. His books have gotten slightly more expensive over the years, because his fans are willing to pay for his work. He still gives away a TON of content at very little or no cost. His audio production diary from Criminal Minds is a good example of this. It was originally a free blog post, people enjoyed it, and now he can charge money for it.
In summary:
Write a book, sell it = sales
Write another book, put it online for free = exposure
Write another book after the increased exposure, sell it = more sales than your first book.
Making a portion of your work available for free increases the number of people that it will reach, since people don't have to spend money to see if they like what you do. Exposure is basically free advertising. Given what it costs to properly and professionally promote your work, giving some of it away for free is the cheapest and most effective form of advertising you could possibly engage in.
Living With a Nerd
I neglected to mention another thing I'm thinking. I understand where you're coming from -- give something out for free, get the recognition, and be able to sell more... IN THE FUTURE. Giving something away gives people no incentive to purchase that specific product. Giving something away would, perhaps, give people the incentive to purchase a product released by you for sale in the future. I agree with this, but to stand by this argument through hell and high water is to imply that every aspiring New York Times best selling author should release their first work for free, in full. Fundamentally, this theory is somewhat contrary to the structure of the IP industry and capitalism in general.
Take a look at the New York Times best seller list. How many obscure, non-promoted authors do you see on there? Hardly any, if any. These are people that have the full force of a major publication house to advertise their book.
Independent or smaller writers, even those on a major publisher, don't have that same luxury. All advertising costs something...what more effective advertising is there than giving people a portion of your work for free?
Living With a Nerd
This is Google... am I supposed to be mad at them or mad at the government? Couldn't the NSA help them? This is all so much easier when Apple does it first, because then I know I'm supposed to like it.
Google's original plan was to pay everyone. Basically they'd go ...
"Hey, this book has been out of print for 45 years the author is dead and there are only a few hundred copies left on the planet. Lets scan it. Then let anyone who wants it dl it.... but it is copywritten, how about we charge people to dl it. With that we will pay the author money they certainly wouldn't be making otherwise. Hell, lets even throw in some extra money for when we put up each book as well.
And we'll email/phone/mail/fax every person we can find that owns copyrights telling them this. If they are alive and give a shit then they can ask us to take it down. Or they can take our money. Everyone wins, tons of books available for all."
Google books is likely to be a major loss leader, it is there to keep books from a near certain doom. Also in regards to copyright law, you are supposed to defend your copyright. If you don't defend it no one will do it for you. So if you are an author and your shit is up their without your permission. You can likely take Google to court. BUT! Because google has a very very easy opt out system in which they STILL pay you even then the initial 60$ or so. It will probably be hell to get a landslide victory. The courtcase protects Google a bit further, from people signed up to the writers guild or w/e.
They put orphan works up for a price. Google will then hunt you down and PAY YOU for the privilege, an initial sum and then money each sale.
You began by seemingly advocating the unlimited distribution of copyrighted work for the sake of selling more products. You ended by advocating a powerful (but optional) path to popularity, a useful business model, and consequently increased sales. In my opinion, I would consider the debate ended due to mutual understanding finally peeking over the horizon.
My problem was with someone saying, "oh no! This is good for the writers; give it out for free and they'll sell more," rather than, "it should be the artist/writer's choice whether to use a business model incorporating 'freebies' that is capable of increasing sales in the future, and this is a good avenue for them to do it." As a ghost writer by profession, I agree with the latter but disagree with the former. Feel me?
"Say someone (be it Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, or some startup company) wants to become a competitor to Google books. He can't."
Says who?
will come from the Google Book Settlement, into which I've "opted in." Call me naive but I don't see how it would benefit me or anyone else to see those books remain in their static state, unavailable save as used books, from which sales I never see a dime. IANA Lawyer but I don't see why Google couldn't break this up into waves, wherein all of us who've opted in can get our checks now and start earning any "royalties" available through search, and leave the disputed rights and claimants for another day.
I'm the queer the atheists sent here to take away your gun!
What Google did was wrong, yes...but there is still money to be made (not to mention the public gaining even more access to information.)
Here's an idea. Why doesnt Google make me an offer, either a blanket opt-in or personally to me, and then I can accept or reject said offer.
This doesnt require changing any laws. If there is money to be made, then surely they can make an offer that will be beneficial to both of us.
If Google was so concerned with preserving older works that arent being published, there would be an ad on all their services saying "Are you an author? Google would like to publish your old works. Click here to see our offer"
But no.. thats exactly not what Google has done.. instead they started copying every book that they could get their hands on with complete disregard for anyones rights.
"His name was James Damore."
As a ghost writer by profession, I agree with the latter but disagree with the former. Feel me?
As someone just getting into freelance writing as a way to earn a little extra money to pad my savings account, absolutely :-)
Living With a Nerd
If the companies buying the assets of the failed company do their work, it transfers. Otherwise it falls into limbo and no-one can legally do anything with it until copyright expires.
I'm just curious why people want to shut it down instead of shaping it to work to their advantage.
'Working to their advantage' could include totally barring further distribution of a work. You might be a famous author, but you wrote some terrible drivel when you were younger. You might want there only to be 240 copies of that early work on acidic pulp paper and crumbling to dust. And it's your right to limit your work's distribution to 240 copies. The individual rights of the creator trump these purported 'collective rights' to the creators work. Nobody is a slave to society.
What google really wants is for books to have the equivalent of "mechanical licensing" that other IP works have.
However, they can't create it by negotiating with a million people, they can only create it by being sued and having the decision go their way and the lawmakers finding this intolerably vague and deciding put it on paper.
Same thing happened with radio royalties, rebroadcasting OTA on cable, and ring tones; and is currently happening with drug patents in poorer countries.
Huzzah for delaying the inevitable future, fuckwads!
How I read it:
Google isn't being allowed to use other's people's stuff to make money! That isn't fair! I like Google, so they shouldn't have to follow the rules just like everyone else! They should be able to do anything and everything they want!
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
But what if somebody makes an unauthorized recording of you on a particularly bad night and you sound horrible? Or you made a 'demo' album six years ago and sold a handful of cassette copies in the local record shop. It gets around and awhile later becomes viral and everybody starts sending it around to all their friends. "listen to the tard playing the shitty guitar" they would all caption it. And the name of your band is all over it.
So a bunch of people are downloading it and your band's rep is ruined.
No, you have the right to decide how it is further disseminated. There might be 40 crappy cassettes out there, but nobody can digitize it and spread copies around the net.
Fine, that can be your business plan.
But it's your choice to make that your business plan. Not Random Redistributor X who comes along and republishes your work without permission.
Google will then hunt you down ...
For some values of "hunt".
Want to bet it's the following process:
We should give credit to the authors of knowledge, but at the same time they shouldn't be able to horde and monopolize knowledge.
First off, "knowledge" isn't held captive in any creative writer's depiction. It exists independent of any particular depiction, and can be re-expressed by somebody else without any form of copyright violation.
So trumpet your diatribe about the 'horrible plight of knowledge held captive to the evil creator' somewhere that people don't think as clearly as we do here.
But what if somebody makes an unauthorized recording of you on a particularly bad night and you sound horrible? Or you made a 'demo' album six years ago and sold a handful of cassette copies in the local record shop. It gets around and awhile later becomes viral and everybody starts sending it around to all their friends. "listen to the tard playing the shitty guitar" they would all caption it. And the name of your band is all over it.
This is a link to a super early concert given by Marilyn Manson. I could be wrong, but I believe it was one of the first concerts they ever did under the name "Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids". The production values are horrendous, the music quality is bad, and the whole thing is generally shitty.
They could have chosen to let it go nowhere, but they decided to release it and make some money off it. And you know what? People who were big fans in the 90's and early 2000's (like myself) wanted it and even paid for it, despite knowing that it was horrible quality. I haven't even watched more than 10 minutes of the copy that I own, yet I am glad that I can own a piece of the band's history. There is even footage on there from Mrs. Scabtree!
Early works shouldn't be ignored. They are an integral part of eventually becoming who you are as an artist.
So a bunch of people are downloading it and your band's rep is ruined.
If, as a band, your fans are so fickle that they will stop liking you because of something you did years ago which is currently irrelevant to what you are releasing, then you have the wrong kind of fans.
No, you have the right to decide how it is further disseminated. There might be 40 crappy cassettes out there, but nobody can digitize it and spread copies around the net.
Agreed, you do have that right.
Living With a Nerd
Copyright laws which rely on creating artificial scarcity need to die.
Can you explain why, without it being an ideological diatribe?
What's wrong with the creator controlling the dissemination of his/her work? Is he/she society's slave? Is the fact that he/she is gifted proof that society is owed the right to his/her creative output?
Nope. If they want twenty signed and numbered copies of their poem to be the sole copies ever produced, it's their right to make that the limit.
Google isn't being allowed to use other's people's stuff to make money! That isn't fair! I like Google, so they shouldn't have to follow the rules just like everyone else! They should be able to do anything and everything they want!
Honestly, I was just trying to kick up a conversation. Despite my flamebait post, it turned into something quite productive :-)
Living With a Nerd
I believe they're part of the companies assets that gets liquidated in bankruptcy court. It's similar to what happens if the bank that holds your mortgage goes under.
Good summation of the situation by the way.
So you will start working to destroy the GPL, then, right? Because the GPL still protects intellectual property.
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
The issue isn't the publishers, the issue is the copyright holders who are difficult to contact. The publishers are actually on board.
The problem is that google wants the courts to assign rights to them that belong to someone else - but no one knows exactly who that someone is. There was a class action that said, "Hey I could be that someone - give me some money." And google said ok, but only if this class represents all the someones. The court doesn't think that because a class sued google that they can assign rights to google of people who may not have known they were supposed to be part of that class.
Pretty funny that the only reason why you could post that here, and the only reason I was able to read it, and check what was the context by searching in Google, is because, well, the copyright on it expired?
more to the point, google is saying you don't have an option of only making $X if that's what you want. They want to force you into a situation where your material is online - regardless of whether you'll make more money that way or not.
the AUTHORS make money from prominence they don't currently have in current a system which buries their works in obscurity
Not necessarily. Authors might have early works that they hate now, and they're glad only 2500 copies were printed, only 400 sold and the rest were pulped by the publisher.
There is, to put it crudely, no fucking way anybody else should be able to come along and republish it. Not until after they're long dead, anyway.
That's how it works.
Only those who have actually been published can argue against Google's proposal? But it's OK to argue for Google without being published, right?
Nah, it isn't Google's doing really. Big libraries try to keep track of these things. But the point was about how it benefits the author. GP asked: "How can putting my "hard work" online for anyone to view at their leisure benefit me financially?" Clearly they can get money for very very minimal effort, in many cases none.
"The problem is there are lots of books out there where it is not reasonably practical to get in touch with the copyright holder."
But because there's no necessity for Google to do this, it's not really a problem for anyone but Google. Google wants to do it, but the law prevents them from doing it. Tough.
IANA Lawyer but I don't see why Google couldn't break this up into waves, wherein all of us who've opted in can get our checks now and start earning any "royalties" available through search, and leave the disputed rights and claimants for another day.
At this point you're a chess piece, and Google intends to use your piece as a pawn...
You still don't get it. It's not up to me, you, or Google to determine what's good or bad for a particular author or what sort of "deal" they might want to make.
Interestingly, all the publishers who sued Google in the first place have opted out of this particular arrangement (they negotiated better deals with Google).
How does this even work? So you can initiate a class action, and then all initiators opt out of it (for any reason) - and it still stands??
That sounds extremely stupid.
If all of this is inevitable why argue for it? If it's inevitable it will happen no matter what.
if its public, its public. nothing goes public and then **snap**, the genie goes back in the bottle. that's absurd
i'm sure john edwards or tiger woods have a few bits of media out there they wish were put in back in the bottle too, but who fucking cares about their embarassment. the idea that we should warp all understanding of freedom of expression and put expensive intrusive toll barriers all over a freely functioning internet just because of the embarassment of some asshole creator who regrets a previous work is pure fucking bullshit
they had to work out agreements with the heirs of sir arthur conan doyle before they did something with the recent sherlock holmes movie. why?! they had to work out agreements with the son of tolkien to proceed on the hobbit movie. why?! its just so much irrational, illegitimate barriers to the free exchange of ideas. no philosophically coherent argument makes sense to me where the child or grandchild or great-grandchild of an author blocks the use of an idea. it simply makes no rational sense to me whatsoever
of course, just as you say, the understanding you outline above IS supported by current law
but it all adds up to me as yet another absurdity that clearly demonstrates the idiocy of IP law, and why the internet should be amplified and sped up by activists in its already inevitable destruction of the stupidity that is IP law. the internet is the rising tide, current intellectual property law is a sand castle. i'm for some of us picking up buckets and speeding up the process: actively undermining the economics that supports the parasitical distributors and nepotisitically embedded heirs that impoverish our culture and dampen the free exchange of ideas. software that seeks out and purposefully puts "protected" works everywhere, so ther'es no way to bottle it up and control it, as if they can do so on the internet anyways
its simply wrong, it hampers the richness and growth of our culture. its a dampening of our shared richness, for the sake of the monetary richness of some nepotistic sense of priveledge and some legislator buying, legal goon employing asshole entrenched and dying distributors. fuck them all. copyright law serves nothing but legal parasites. and so this moronic status quo should be resisted and actively destroyed, for the good of our culture
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
For starters, there would be no drug research without intellectual property. No, drug companies aren't saints, but developing and testing a drug is phenomenally expensive, if they had to compete with the generics from the word go they'd just shut down. Medical breakthroughs are pretty important.
Intellectual property encompass trademarks, if I'm at the grocery store and I want to buy some Glad (tm) trashbags, it's because I don't want the store brand ones. If the store could duplicate Glad's packaging I wouldn't know what I'm getting.
The point is when you create art, you have control of its expression as art. You have not only the right to exclusive sale of it but also how your work is expressed. If I own, i.e., a play and I license it, a company that produces it can not legally change the words to the play without my permission--it is my play and I can choose how it is presented.
Almost everyone that google can find doesn't have any problem with this project (assuming the price is right). The question is whether google should be legally allowed to assume that the people they can't find don't have a problem with it.
I think the point is actually that people who have not yet published are implicitly agreeing to this--it amounts to a change in copyright law which requires an act of congress, not google.
The fact that something is difficult to do legally doesn't give you license to change the law.
http://gamer.blorge.com/2010/01/03/nintendo-forces-fan-made-zelda-movie-to-be-taken-down/ - Fan film being held restricted.
The entire 8 bit Nintendo catalog, now 30 years old.
Prescription drugs.
Forceps, which a private family kept secret for nearly a century when it could have been used to save 1000's of lives.
Information is meant to be free. We use information gotten from others everyday. We are all standing on the shoulders of giants and without them we wouldn't be here today.
We only need GPL to protect the open community from Copyright and Patent lawyers. If there was no longer Copyrights or Patents there would be no reason for the GPL. The GPL is a stopgap until intellectual property laws are reformed.
and what lobbyists are you talking about? that's funny
these are the facts (not propaganda):
if you have an obscure artist, and they are not reexposed to a mass audience, they make no money. fact
if an independent artist reexposes the obscure artist, money can be made via ancillary means off that obscure artist again. fact
however, current law means the independent artist cannot reexpose the obscure artist, because they can't afford the rights... to something no one wants... until they get reexposed. fact, fact, fact. something smell weird to you?
http://www.answers.com/topic/annette-hanshaw
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/03/17/f-sita-sings-the-blues.html
here's some more "propaganda" for you:
http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=18202
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Sure they would. Governments fund cancer research to the tune of Billions of dollars a year. Aids research is funded through charities and through donations.
You will still have patients causing a demand for drugs. Universities and teaching hospitals will pick up the slack where the drug companies fail. Charities and donations will cover the research costs. Manufacturing costs will go down and drugs will be cheaper for everyone.
I mentioned reform. Trademarks do have a purpose. They identify you with your product. That doesn't stop someone from copying your product, but they shouldn't be able to tarnish your name. I also say you should give credit to the inventors. Citations are very important. Fame has value and it lasts a lot longer than monetary gains. You can turn Fame into money, through speaking, teaching, lectures, and endorsements. You can make money on IP without hording it as long as it is required that you cite the author. Claiming someone else's idea as your own is still wrong.
You are wrong from a legal, economic, and ethical standpoint. Legally, copyrights grant rights-holders only limited, temporary authority to limit what other people do with works. Economically, creating artificial scarcity is bad for an economy, whether we're talking about information or commodities. And ethically, the idea that anyone has a "natural" right to tell other people what they can and cannot do with information is fundamentally illiberal.
Our society has decided to grant temporary monopoly rights in order to "promote science and the useful arts." We did so because scarcity was the only economic model we knew at the time.
A far better model would be to allow free access to all information (that's the stuff golden ages are made of) and reward rights-holders proportionately to the popularity and investment expense in the works.
I say such a system is inevitable because the benefits to society are fantastic, so as examples of these benefits become apparent on smaller scales, people will demand change.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Oh wait. This is Google and not Microsoft?
I can't believe that the government is meddling in the affairs of businesses. What happened to Laissez-faire economics? This is an outrage!
Moral rights do not trump fair use AFAIK.
Copyright doesn't give you the right to limit how others may quote you. Even if an author hates the KKK, the KKK can quote something they wrote in order make their case.
...
BTW does anyone what happens legally to a copyright a company owns but doesn't know they own when said company goes bankrupt?
Yes and no. That is, yes I do and no I don't. After my divorce I declared bankrupcy, and my registered copyrights were part of the settlement. The judge saw that they had gained no revenue for me in over two decades, so I was able to keep them.
Now, a business, particularly a corporation? One would think that the copyrights would go to creditors, but it may be that the judge would see that the particular work was out of print for 20 years and, like my copyrights, not worry about them. If a corporation goes bankrupt, it no longer exists.
I would hope the judge would transfer ownership of the work, but I can see where he or she (the judge was a woman in my case) may not.
Free Martian Whores!
There is no need for intellectual property anymore
This "property" doesn't belong to the copyright holder, it belongs to the public. The copyright holder holds a limited time monopoly on its publication, but we retain ownership. It's like a rented house -- you have a limited time monopoly on its use, but you don't own it.
Free Martian Whores!
If you are one of the people they are proposing a deal with (who are exactly coextensive with the members of the class litigating against them), they aren't litigating with other people. Its a class action suit against them, which means if you are a member of the defined class and haven't actively opted out of the action, they are (involuntarily, as they are the target of the suit) litigating against you (or, specifically, against your legal representatives in the matter at issue.)
And if you have opted out of the class, of course, they aren't proposing a deal with you at all, since, by definition, the resolution of a class action suit (by settlement or otherwise) is not binding against people who are not parties to the suit, including potential class members who opted out of the class.
If that was true, you couldn't have both copyright laws and property laws, which is obviously untrue.
You probably mean that property laws and copyright laws are disjoint sets, such that no copyright law is a property law and vice versa, but this is also untrue. Copyright laws are a subset of intellectual property laws (along with, e.g., patent laws), which are a subset of intangible personal property laws (along with, e.g., laws governing securities), which are in turn a subset of personal property laws (along with laws governing tangible personal property), which are in turn a subset of property laws (along with laws governing real property.)
This is quite clearly false, since all copyright laws are property laws (though not all property laws are copyright laws), so any change to any copyright law is also a change to a property law.
One might make a coherent argument that we need different intellectual property laws for this reason, but I don't see a coherent argument that we don't need intellectual property stemming from the pace of information moving and changing.
Because it is a class action, all members of the class had notice and the opportunity to opt-out of the litigation; the notice was required to include a notice that failure to opt-out could result in permanent effects to their legal rights under the claim at issue as a result of whatever resolution was reached in the case.
The NIH has a not-insubstantial annual budget of ~$30 billion.
Pfizer, by itself, had revenues of $48 billion last year.
Academic medical research is good at lots of things - developing new marketable drugs isn't one of them - nor is the government prepared to spend that kind of money.
We can't get the government to provide universal healthcare, what in the world makes you think that we can get the government to step up and cover pharma's R&D budget in the absence of patents?
Oops,sorry, hit "submit" when I meant to hit "preview".
If you lock something up in a patent or have it copyrighted derivative works are set back half a generation or more.
Not patents; they only last twenty years. If patents lasted as long as copyright, technological progress would come to a standstill. Like technology, art is built on what has come before it.
I believe that people could fully share all knowledge with each other and that there would still be a market for using that knowledge as a service or to produce a good. I think we should still cite the original creators of the knowledge, but that it should be free to all.
The purpose of patents and copyrights is to encourage the creation of new works. I'm not likely to spend billions researching a new drug if anybody can sell that drug without royalties; I'd go broke in no time, as I'd have no way to recoup the cost of the research. There's a lot wrong with current patent law, but the need for it exists. The same with copyright law. IMO copyrights should last no longer than patents, and noncommercial use should be legal.
We should give credit to the authors of knowledge, but at the same time they shouldn't be able to horde and monopolize knowledge.
You can't copyright knowledge, only its expression. If you take a copyright work and put that knowledge down in your own words, you will hold copyright to the new expression of that knowledge.
Free Martian Whores!
Another issue here is that this is Google - not a broad based generic group of information suppliers. Part of the DOJ's legal argument is that this can grant a huge boon to a single entity and a competitive advantage. If we need this sort of stuff (which I doubt), then it should be available to more than a single company.
The other part of the argument, and the most important one I think, is that the whole agreement just circumvents existing copyright laws. If the laws are broken, then maybe it makes sense to fix the laws. But that is quite different from just having a wink and a handshake and then pretending the laws don't exist. Someone wants to make some money here, and unfortunately there are some laws standing in the way of their planned business model.
Blow the copyright laws into the ditch. It is a flawed and screwy concept. That which is distributed loses any facility to be private in any way. If people really want "rights" over such property they should keep their literary and musical creations to themselves. Art is not supposed to be about money at all. They are turning artistic products into commercial products.
1 of 2 things will happen. Either people with the disease that needs a cure will donate or the disease affects so few people that the cost to find a cure isn't worth it to society to find it.
The new world is funded by micro donations and consumption taxes. We aren't there yet, but when we do get there people will look back at this generation as if we were uncivilized.
I was unaware of any compensation for authors that Google was proposing - the settlement leaves the door open to some type of compensation in the future as well as leaving the door open to sales of the books by Google or their authorized agents.
But any revenue derived from showing the content of the books online would be Google's compensation for scanning the books and hosting them.
I think that is one of the huge problems a lot of people have with this is that Google is simply appropriating the content and deriving revenue (ads) from it.
Copyright doesn't give you the right to limit how others may quote you.
Tell that to Men at Work: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/story/2010/02/04/down-under-lawsuit.html
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Because it is a class action, all members of the class had notice and the opportunity to opt-out of the litigation;
I live in a small town in Canada and I didn't receive any notice. I have the "big city" newspaper delivered every day and I get the local weekly paper in my mailbox too. Never saw any notice in either of those, or anywhere else (other than what's been posted on Slashdot and the like).
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Not sure what you are saying. The copyright law grants artists right of expression, the copyright law also grants fair use. I'm arguing that the DOJ is making a valid point. Where did moral rights come from?
What do you suppose is at stake in this case? Isn't storage, retrieval, and searching of the book happening? All of these are way outside of the traditional grant of fair use where someone presumably decides that the particular use does not diminish the value of the original art, or that the particular quote makes sense to quote. I agree fair use and criticism can not be excluded, but they are limited to not diminishing the value of the art. As an example, quotes as short as 300 words form books have been found to not be fair use.
But if I am the copyright holder, I might want my art to not appear in excerpts (say I think it destroys the feeling of the piece). Obviously this argument is stupid for a CS textbook but might make sense for a well crafted novel or a painting where I might not want others to make black and white copies of portions of it and distribute them with information about how to buy the work from me. While I can't stop excerpting for criticism, I should be able to stop it for other uses--it is my art after all.
The point is when you create art, you have control of its expression as art. You have not only the right to exclusive sale of it but also how your work is expressed. If I own, i.e., a play and I license it, a company that produces it can not legally change the words to the play without my permission--it is my play and I can choose how it is presented.
Did I wake up in bizzaro world again?
I can understand you being pissed if I changed your work and passed it off as a faithful representation, but to say that you have absolute control over expression is moronic. That isn't property rights, nor authorship rights, that is 'I don't wanna play with the other kids because they're drawing moustaches on my Mona Lisa'.
I see, so if the law isn't the way you want it to be, it is moronic. The thing is that many artists want to share their work there way. If they can not be granted that right, they will not share their work. This means that you can't republish my book after editing it or changing around the prose, even if you first buy a copy of my book for every copy of your book that you distribute. Same thing for songs. There is no automatic license to change and redistribute if you buy a CD for every CD you distribute. One example of this is that my name goes out on that book and your style of my artwork might be absolute rubbish. It isn't just about credit, it is about expression--an essential part of art. Alternately, I might have written a beautiful story with very jerky prose at points to make a political point that I want to make very clear at those points. You can't republish it after smoothing out or removing those points--I can use the work for my purpose and you can't use it for yours.
I'm a video game enthusiast, and have been for some time(28 years old). There are now loads of games that I played a young kid that are now 'abandonware'. So, these games can be downloaded and enjoyed for free. When I hear in the news and read online about Google and 'orphaned' work, I'm reminded of all the abandoware games I've enjoyed playing. Let Google scan the books, maybe they'll archive abandoned games next.
Hang on a minute now. Property Law and Copyright Law (and by extension Intellectual Property Law de jure) are entangled in many ways. Property has always been held as the highest function of law in Western society and with some cause but to pretend that Copyright laws are simply unrelated is disingenuous. If the only property I can hold is physical, modern society is in for a lot of hurt and apparently what I spend my days doing holds no value. I understand your position and to some degree can even sympathize but your initial premise is terribly flawed.
forgive me if I'm not willing to place my health in the invisible hand of the free market.
The quote is from a statement to Congress, smart guy. There is no copyright on government documents. Work on your reading comprehension.
Way to try to pretend that the mess which is copyright law is simple! The real truth is that works of the US Government, i.e., employees of the government, are not subject to US copyright. Works which are commissioned by the US Government, e.g., anything done by a contractor, may or may not be subject to US copyright, it depends.
Anyway, you more or less have made an epic fail in mathematics. If there was no copyright on his words, this is equivalent to the copyright on them expiring at time = 0, i.e., immediately.
And BTW, did you even think about the significance of my post? It has little to do with whether that particular speech was ever under copyright. Or do you feel that we should be content to be limited to only posting quotations before Congress on Slashdot? Because that would be the reality of the situation if Clemens had had his way with respect to eternal copyright.
Pfizer spent most of that $48 billion on premiums, marketing, direct marketing doctors and hospital managers to Hawaii, etc..
I see, so if the law isn't the way you want it to be, it is moronic.
On occasion, yes. What is your point?
The thing is that many artists want to share their work there way. If they can not be granted that right, they will not share their work.
There's a solution to that, not sharing their work.
I can use the work for my purpose and you can't use it for yours..
You seem oblivious to the proven exceptions such as for the purpose of parody. Perhaps you are suggesting that the L.H.O.O.Q version of the Mona Lisa would be unlawful under current law?
Let me start by reiterating that I am under no impression that big pharma are saints.
However, academia isn't in the business of business. Even if I were to grant that educational institutions could do all the medical R&D we need, they are not capable of formulating, meeting regulatory requirements, manufacturing, marketing, distributing, and assuming liability for drugs.
Generic's business model is to take the active ingredient AND formulation AND regulatory approval that the patent holder developed and manufacture the drug more cheaply. This is a very important part of the prescription drug economy, but in a world where pharmaceutical companies don't hold patents academia might be capable of turning out interesting and novel active ingredients, but there wouldn't be anyone there to turn it into a marketable drug.
I'm not happy with the size of big pharma's marketing budget or tactics, but consider that a significant portion of the NIH's budget goes towards the paper writing portion of science, as opposed to the research itself. This is absolutely a necessary part of science, but communication of discoveries is, in essence, another form of marketing.
No. There is no fucking way that the government should be pointing guns at people to keep them from making copies of a work that an author has abandoned out of embarrassment. That does not "promote the progress of science and useful arts".
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
All I am saying, is that if you truly believe that intellectual property should be completely free, for people to do with how they please, you will be all for taking the first step, and anything you create will instantly be free for everyone, with no strings attached. Enjoy making a living off of that.
Believe it or not, but intellectual property rights are needed. If there were none, and people were free to take what they wanted from day one, nobody would ever be able to turn a profit. Businesses would collapse. Technology would be set back generations. Or do you have some kind of fund that will provide you billions every year for R&D, production, and distribution of products?
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.