Google To Seek Dismissal of Suit Against Google Books

angry tapir writes with an update on the drawn out legal battle between Google and everyone else over their Books service. From the article: "After a so-far fruitless three-year effort to settle the case, Google and the plaintiffs suing it for alleged book-related copyright infringement apparently are moving away from seeking a friendly solution. Google has notified the court that it intends to file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed against it by authors and publishers in 2005, in which they allege copyright infringement stemming from Google's wholesale scanning of millions of library books without the permission of copyright owners. Google Books has been at the center of copyright-related controversy since 2005 when the Authors Guild of America and Association of American Publishers sued the search giant. This has been followed by other legal wrangles, including a 2010 suit by the American Society of Media Photographers, lawsuits in France and Germany and conflict with Chinese authors over the book-scanning project."

Comments

... Profit!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm publishing this comment copyright Anonymous Coward. I'm going to sue Google if they index it.

Google doing evil again

[Anonymous Coward]

or rather, still

Re:Google doing evil again

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this evil?

Re:Google doing evil again

[Anonymous Coward]

Blatant copyright infringement on a huge scale comes to mind.

Re:Google doing evil again

[NicknameOne]

Nice try. Troll harder next time. Authors have nothing to do with this. The greedy middle-men were the ones pushing against Google.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Caerdwyn]

The evil is that they are scanning commercial literary works subject to copyright with the intent of giving the scans away, and doing so against the wishes of the copyright holders. Though copyright law states the duration of copyright, and that the copyright holders retain all rights unless explicitly granted, Google is claiming "silence gives consent" for items which are still under copyright. Essentially, Google is accused of directly engaging in piracy of literary works.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Anonymous Coward]

Where, in any of the legitimate arguments against Google, is there the suggestion that Google wishes to withhold money from or steal content from authors with a claim to profits generated from the sale of their content?

Additionally, where is the claim that Google plans on making available copyrighted material for which an author is known and interested in claiming their legitimate profit?

Re:Google doing evil again

[icebike]

Only if your mind id very small.

Please take the time to investigate the issue at hand before revealing your ignorance.

Re:Google doing evil again

[icebike]

Where, in any of the legitimate arguments against Google, is there the suggestion that Google wishes to withhold money from or steal content from authors with a claim to profits generated from the sale of their content?

Additionally, where is the claim that Google plans on making available copyrighted material for which an author is known and interested in claiming their legitimate profit?

This!

However, I doubt you will make any headway with these people who are convinced that this is blatant copyright violation on a grand scale. Their mind is closed on the subject.

At issue is a tiny TINY number of Unknown Authors who in most cases are dead, leaving no known heirs, who published something after 1923, but which is now out of print. Abandoned works by and large. Google does not violate copyrights, and uses the power of their own search engine to find these authors.

But every time this story comes up, the same google haters jump up and scream copyright infringement.
 

Re:Google doing evil again

[icebike]

They give excerpts away, under fair use exemptions. You do not get entire works. Check your facts.

Re:Google doing evil again

[martin-boundary]

"Silence gives consent" is how all search engines operate on the net (*). It's a core value of Google without which it could not have existed as a successful company.

The problem here is that Google's mission is supposedly to index all the world's information, but when that information doesn't naturally live on the net, the core values are incompatible. Hence the clash with books (copyright issues) and the clash with street view (privacy issues), and there will be clashes in every other area of life where information doesn't normally follow the internet rules of openness and unlimited shareability.

As long as Google's mission remains this ambitious, they'll continue to piss off a lot of people over time every time they hit the natural limits of their philosophy. But if they change their mission to something more realistic, they have to acknowledge that there's going to be limits to their growth and the markets that they can enter while playing up their strengths.

(*) The robot exclusion protocol was a response to this, but it's never been more than an ethical guideline.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Rockoon]

They give excerpts away

I do not consider "the exact pages you needed, in their entirety" to be "excerpts"

Re:Google doing evil again

[martin-boundary]

That's always been a tentative defense.

Say I have a book with 1 million words, and I have 1 million customers, and I show each customer only one word, but it's always a different one. Have I distributed the whole book or not?

(I've simplified the issue obviously, but the principle remains valid with the actual Google books practices).

Re:Google doing evil again

[icebike]

Would you get less in a library or a book store?

What you consider is of no importance here. What the law says is.

Re:Google doing evil again

[icebike]

By any legal definition of the word "distributed", you DID NOT.

Re:Google doing evil again

[martin-boundary]

IANAL but from here:

Distribution is generally defined as the dissemination or apportionment of something [...].

Re:Google doing evil again

[Caerdwyn]

Wrong. The entire book is scanned. The filtration is done at presentation time; the entire work is digitized. I know this because Google tried to do this with my book. They also lied about trying to contact me for permission; I received no such contact even though my contact information had not changed in years, and the publisher is still in business at the same contact points listed in the book itself. Needless to say, when I found out about this I cease-and-desisted Google. My work is not theirs to give away.

The lawsuit notes they they are scanning the entire work, without permission, with intent to provide the entire work to libraries in addition to presenting excerpts to anyone. The lawsuit also asserts that the usage is NOT "fair use". Kinko's Copies used to photocopy portions of textbooks selected by professors, assemble those chapters into custom textbooks per the professor's specifications, and sell them; they too claimed "fair use". Kinko's had their heads handed to them in court, which forced them to greatly diminish their campus income and started a slide into non-profitability that led to the FedEx buyout. (I managed a campus-facing Kinko's in the late 80's; I saw it all firsthand) The only differences are that with Kinko's, the copied material was presented in physical form, and that the financial benefit for the infringement was immediate (a retail sale) as opposed to diffuse (advertising data collection and presentation). The Kinko's case is being cited by the plaintiffs as precedent.

The lawsuit also states that Google is exposing the authors to the risk of having all of their works compromised at once. If someone breaks into Google's storage system, they can get every book Google has ever come into contact with. The pirates won't have to do the scanning and OCR work; Google will have already removed that hurdle. This is a risk which Google has imposed upon authors without consent; it's another example of Google not giving a damn about what authors want, and assuming rights and powers which they have no legal or ethical claim to.

Check your own facts.

Re:Google doing evil again

[RobotRunAmok]

Authors have nothing to do with this.

Authors have EVERYTHING to do with this, fool. The Author's Guild has been fighting this since day one.

Sorry, but you can't cry and whine that it's the E-E-E-E-E-VILLLL *IAA's/licensed distributors (who only rip-off the poor artists anyway) who are leading the fight against piracy this time. The authors are on the front line -- have been since the day Harlan Ellison first sued AOL back in the 90's

Re:Google doing evil again

[icebike]

Google has already prevailed on all of these points. Only the abandoned works issue is still at issue.

Had you not issued a cease and desist order, you might be selling some books. As it is you post on slash dot.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Rockoon]

Hey, I bet Google scanned more than a few law books. This should be easy.

Give a fucking law citation, asshole. Stop making baseless claims. You've already shot yourself in the foot in another comment when you claimed that only a few pages could be viewed and then linked to one of these books where clearly dozens upon dozens of pages were viewable.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you get less in a library

Are you serious? There are special laws for libraries.

or a book store?

You mean one of those businesses that actually compensated the copyright holder by buying many copies?

Re:Google doing evil again

[icebike]

Dozens is fair use.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Dhalka226]

I hear that swearing and acting like a tough guy on Internet forums in lieu of real life gets you all the chicks. Is that true?

Re:Google doing evil again

[icebike]

Google compensated the copyright holders too.
On October 28, 2008 the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers, and Google announced that they had settled Authors Guild v. Google. Google agreed to a $125 million payout, $45 million of that to be paid to rightsholders whose books were scanned without permission.

Re:Google doing evil again

[icebike]

Hey, I bet Google scanned more than a few law books. This should be easy.
 

The scans provide only snippits, and are insufficient for any legal research, but hey, thanks for proving my point.

Re:Google doing evil again

[icebike]

They do so only within the exemptions for fair use as provided in the copyright law.
And a word to each person can hardly be considered distribution of a book. Each person walks away with essentially Nothing.

Re:Google doing evil again

[bhcompy]

John Scalzi posts on various Slashdot-esque websites and forums. I'm pretty sure he still sells books.

Re:Google doing evil again

[icebike]

And his books still appear on Google Books. So if there was a point, I missed it.

https://www.google.com/search?q=John+Scalzi&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1

Re:Google doing evil again

[bhcompy]

"As it is you post on slash dot."

Point speaks for itself

Re:Google doing evil again

[emddudley]

So... how do you feel about libraries?

Re:Google doing evil again

[Holi]

Under what claim does Google to get fair use. Just because they offer a few pages does not make it fair-use.

17 U.S.C. 107
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. 106 and 17 U.S.C. 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:
1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Google is not using these excerpts for any of the above reasons, they are using them for profit, thus it is not protected under fair-use.

You are all stuck on the fact they are only allowing excerpts but that is only one of the requirements of fair-use.

Re:Google doing evil again

[misexistentialist]

You are talking about legalities not "evil". Monkeys stringing words together (I'm being generous--the normal authorship process is far less original) and staking claim to them out of pure meanness for as long as we shall live is what evil looks like.

Re:Google doing evil again

[martin-boundary]

They do so only within the exemptions for fair use as provided in the copyright law.

There's no fair use when the whole of the book (or say 80% of its contents) is distributed. Google's use is not fair use.

And a word to each person can hardly be considered distribution of a book. Each person walks away with essentially Nothing.

What each person walks away with is irrelevant. There's no distinction between distributing to a single individual or distributing to a group. In both cases, it's distribution.(*)

But let's do a quick back of the envelope calculation. The way Google books actually works is: people get to see a full page, not a single word.

Now, let's say the average book contains about 300 pages. That means if 300 people look at a different section of the book, then the full book has been distributed once on average. In actual fact the number of pages a person gets to see is more than one, let's say people look at about 10 pages on average. In that case, when 300 people have looked at the same book, then Google has distributed the full book about 10 times already on average.

Of course, anybody who's used Google books knows that there are some pages that are deliberately missing each time you come back to look at the same book. Let's say about 20% of all pages are deliberately missing this way. Now when 300 people look at the book, they each look at about 10 pages from the 80% that's available, so Google hasn't technically distributed a single full book, but it still distributed 80% of the full book, about 10 times altogether.

That's not fair use. You can't distribute 80% of a book under fair use. You *might* be able to get away with distributing less than 10% of a book under fair use. If Google books did that, then the number of deliberately unavailable pages would have to be more than 90%, and that would make the service pretty much unusable.

Amazon actually do this right. If you use their "look inside" service, you can't see most of the book, it's well under 10%: just the table of contents and a few more pages.

That's what Google have to do if they want to argue "fair use", but that would cripple the service. As it is, they're massive "fair use" infringers so they had better use another legal argument.

(*) At this point, you might also like to think about bittorrent distribution, which uses the same principle of cutting up a file into tiny independent pieces distributed separately - but that's a digression.

Re:Google doing evil again

[NicknameOne]

The author's guild wanted to settle with Google you fucking pathetic idiot! God I hate name calling on the Internet but I'm forced to do it sometimes!

Re:Google doing evil again

[icebike]

They charge you NOTHING. No profit.
But nice try.

Re:Google doing evil again

[icebike]

The decision as to what is fair use is significantly above your pay grade.

I suggest you let the legal experts decide this issue.

Re:Google doing evil again

[martin-boundary]

That's Rule 27, right? Never admit defeat, especially when it's obvious you've lost ;-)

Re:Google doing evil again

[icebike]

You've done nothing but blurt out your pin headed opinion.
And you stand up and thump your chest like you have Won the Internet.

How are those wool pants smelling?

Re:Google doing evil again

[Anonymous Coward]

The evil is that they are scanning commercial literary works subject to copyright with the intent of giving the scans away, and doing so against the wishes of the copyright holders.

And their remedy is to sue Google, not some third parties suing Google. Rightheaven ring a bell?

Re:Google doing evil again

[Anonymous Coward]

That was a very "bold" and "legally dubious" settlement which gave Google an exclusive compulsory license to distribute orphan works in their entirety.

Re:Google doing evil again

[martin-boundary]

And that's Rule 43 I believe. Wow, you sure know a lot of rules!

Re:Google doing evil again

[Anonymous Coward]

Go fuck yourself. I'm glad you didn't let your work be listed. No one gives a shit about your retarded fantasy novel or whatever.

You remind me of the bitches who call the politician's mistress a cunt because they wish they were the politician's wife.

Re:Google doing evil again

[nbauman]

I spoke to a couple of copyright lawyers about this and I asked them to define "fair use." How much can you copy? How many pages?

The answer is, nobody knows. There are a few cases that the court decided but outside of those very narrow conditions, no lawyer can tell you for sure.

Incidentally, those same authors who are complaining about their books being copied without their permission usually copy entire reviews of their books to give away in the press kits of their books.

What's obvious to you isn't obvious to somebody else.

Re:Google doing evil again

[nbauman]

The other issue is that libraries want to scan their collections for use within their own building, so they can send disintegrating books to cold storage or throw them out. It's sort of like making a backup. But the Author's Guild doesn't want to let them do that either.

The libraries want to be able to send images of the pages of their books to their patrons, rather than bringing up the physical book.

That seems reasonable.

Here's a real problem: I was at the New York Public Library's performing arts library in Lincoln Center. The librarian explained that they have collections of folders of clippings about all kinds of theater topics, such as theaters. These clippings contain information that's available noplace else. They don't have a good index, and the only way to find out what's in the folders is to get them from the stacks. The newspaper clippings are printed on newsprint, which is disintegrating.

They want to image the whole collection, so patrons of the library can sit at a terminal and view images of the folders, rather than have to send them up from the stacks in elevators and read through the disintegrating clippings. They're waiting for the resolution of the Google suit before they can go ahead. If the Authors' Guild wins, they won't be able to image their own collection, and they'll have to watch it turn to dust.

A lot of this stuff has the problem of orphan works. It would be almost impossible to digitize it if you needed permission from the copyright holder (which is not necessarily the author).

A folder might contain articles, such as reviews, from a dozen different publications. Some of them might not be in existence any more. If the reviewer was an employee of the publication, the copyright belongs to the publication. If the reviewer was a freelancer, it probably belongs to the freelancer or his estate -- but that depends on long-lost contracts. There are people who track these copyrights down when publishers want to reprint things in textbooks -- it might cost $10 or $100 per article to track down the current owner, and sometimes you can't find them at all. Sometimes it's still in copyright, but they can't figure out, without a lawsuit, exactly who owns the rights (like that Philip K. Dick story, The Adjustment Bureau).

I think it's a social good to have these disintegrating files imaged. I think it's fair use. The Author's Guild doesn't think so, and if they get their way, these folders will turn to dust.

BTW, I also make my living as a published author. But I've spent days searching through paper copies of old books and microfilm, and I've always dreamed of being about to search for it by computer.

Re:Google doing evil again

[perryizgr8]

books that have dozens of pages available have been authorized by the author/publisher afaik.

Re:Google doing evil again

[blind biker]

Wrong. The entire book is scanned. The filtration is done at presentation time; the entire work is digitized. I know this because Google tried to do this with my book.

Fuck you and your book.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you get less in a library or a book store?

Libraries and bookstores do not copy books.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Are you seriously claiming that Google are doing this other than for commercial purposes, and that they are not going to make money by bringing eyeballs to their site to view other people's work?

As has often been observed, Google's users aren't their customers, they are their products. Advertisers are their customers, and their advertising operations are most definitely profitable.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Google has already prevailed on all of these points. Only the abandoned works issue is still at issue.

[citation needed]

It seems to me that Judge Chin has been less than supportive of Google's case so far. In fact, the original settlement in 2008 was thrown out after extensive review as being unfair, largely on the basis of the kinds of objections many people are suggesting in this very Slashdot discussion.

Moreover, it seems the current state of the case very much still includes deciding fundamental questions such as whether the mass-copying of works onto Google's own servers without permission is fair use. This is straight from TFA, so you're going to need more than wishful thinking and proof-by-intimidation as counter-arguments.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

"Silence gives consent" is how all search engines operate on the net

Well, yes and no. I suspect search engines for web pages would do better to argue that their behaviour constitutes fair use because, among other factors, the original material is readily available on-line from the original source anyway. In that case, it's not "silence gives consent", it's "consent is not required" or perhaps "consent is implicit in the rightsholder's other actions". There is nothing in copyright law in any country I know about that says silence is sufficient for consent in the general case, and indeed that would be a very dangerous principle to adopt, since it places the burden on copyright holders to notify everyone in the universe that they wish to enforce the rights the law gives them or they lose those rights.

Re:Google doing evil again

[esocid]

The reason I'm particularly fond of it is the access to out-of-print material. I went searching for an old book that I couldn't find for purchase, and luckily found scans of it in this project.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Anonymous Coward]

Google compensated the copyright holders too.

No they didn't.

On October 28, 2008 the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers, and Google announced that they had settled Authors Guild v. Google.

None of these people own the copyrights to my book.

If Google is so great in this endeavor, why are you lying so much about it?

Re:Google doing evil again

[Rockoon]

Google doesnt profit? What a fucking asshole liar you are.

First you claim (A) Its only a few pages, then we find out its dozens.
Then you claim (B) Its legal, but we find out that it isn't.
Now you claim (C) There is no profit, which is obviously fucking bullshit.

Take Googles cock out of your mouth and wake the fuck up.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Rockoon]

I hear that not having a valid arguing point but mouthing off anyways is worthless. Thats true.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Anonymous Coward]

strangely enough, that's EXACTLY how bittorrent works.

no one seems to questions that if I post a movie on it I've distributed it though.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Oligonicella]

Ads. Ads. Ads. Yes they profit.

But, nice try.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Apu de Beaumarchais]

I'm not sure you're not just trolling, but to quote the GP

In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include: 1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; 2) the nature of the copyrighted work; 3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and 4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Emphasis mine. Profit is only one factor and on top of that the page has a bar at the top advertising Google products and links on the left to buy the book, which they probably get a cut of. But nice try.

Re:Google doing evil again

[martin-boundary]

Well, yes and no. I suspect search engines for web pages would do better to argue that their behaviour constitutes fair use because, among other factors, the original material is readily available on-line from the original source anyway.

That's only a statistical majority of content though. Various types of websites (commercial or otherwise) often try to hide some of their information behind an access barrier, and this has always been the case since the early days of the net.

The technologies that have been used to control access weren't always well thought out, and even then misconfigurations were/are common. Also, it's always been common for people to mirror data (anonymously or not) without having been given permission. The upshot is that spiders collect a lot of web pages and media content that aren't at all intended to be readily available online from the original source. That makes the fair use argument on its own too simple IMHO.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Search engines typically won't index content behind access barriers, though. Indeed, showing something different to a robot from somewhere like Google to what you show the general public visiting your site is a pretty reliable way of getting blacklisted.

You have a fair point about content that's been mirrored without the permission of the legitimate rightsholder. I'm not sure anyone has come up with a good solution to that basic problem yet. I suspect a combination of penalising the original source of illegal distribution in proportion to any damage they do* and providing a safe harbour/takedown notice system as many jurisdictions now do is probably a decent compromise.

* That's reasonably argued damages, not random conjecture as we often see from Big Media, whose losses to copyright infringement have now exceeded global GDP according to one recent argument I heard about! However, in the former case, I have no problem with throwing the book at someone who has wilfully infringed copyright and caused a lot of damage because of it.

Re:Google doing evil again

[martin-boundary]

You're right of course that search engines make a reasonable effort to not show/distribute suspect content, but as someone who's done machine learning, I have a healthy skepticism of the possible success rate for automated methods (non-automated methods just don't scale, and arguably haven't scaled since the days long ago when Yahoo was king).

A great historical example for this are web server logs, which people use to mine for all sorts of information including passwords/etc. Early web spiders would simply follow all the links in them indiscriminately, because they're great sources of URLs.

It's hard to make a good job of filtering those URLs with a script or AI program. There are so many possibilities that even a tiny failure rate of 0.1% becomes gigantic when you multiply this by the scale of the web. (the current web is at least 1 trillion urls...)

Re:Google doing evil again

[JimFive]

There is one major difference, though. In the case of the library, it owns the material. Google does not own the material.

The library also needs to look into preservation options. They could do some sort of lamination to protect the newsprint. There isn't any reason the clippings need to remain exposed to the air.
--
JimFive

Re:Google doing evil again

[nbauman]

The library owns the material. They contract out to Google the job of managing the images.

They do laminate selected clippings. I don't know how much it cost, but it's certainly >$1/page and probably >$5/page to do it in volume. These are fragile clippings that won't always easily fit through a high-volume laminating machine. If they laminated every page, they'd need 5 times the storage space. And it would be even more difficult to file them and bring them up from storage.

The New York Public Library (like all major reference libraries) has been preserving books and old paper since they opened. They have a system for de-acidifying rare books and paper. I think it costs around $10/page.

The judges will decide. Since the copyright law is so vague, they'll decide it on the basis of how much the social value of an index of all the books in all the libraries in the world overrides the (undefined) copyright rights of the authors of those books. Google lets them opt out. The issue is whether it should be opt-out or opt-in. If it's opt-in, orphan books will be effectively gone. And there are a lot of important orphan books.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Anonymous Coward]

The library should be arguing microfiche as a precedent for the validity of this.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Holi]

They profit by using your eyeballs to sell advertising space, who ever said you were Google's customer, you are their product.

Are you trying to tell me Google is not a profit making company?
So quit being so smug and try and understand what your talking about.

Re:Google doing evil again

[Holi]

Your right, Fair-Use is muddy water. No one knows what it really means. The letter of the law is very vague, I am sure this was done intentionally so as to cover future reasons that may have been disallowed if they were too specific, kind of like the Bill of Rights. But the spirit of the law is less vague. Basically fair-use is for the betterment of society at large, not for corporate profits.

If I were an author ...

[Taco Cowboy]

Which I am not, but if I were an author, I would be THRILLED to find my book on googlebooks !!

Why?

Unless I am a very well known author, so well known that even people deep in the jungle in Africa or people from the hinterland of Siberia know me, there is NO WAY my book get to people in those places.

Getting my book scanned and placed online by google is a way to get my book to THE WORLD.

Profit loss?

No way.

As my book wouldn't be getting into the hands of people living in deep jungle in Africa or in the hands of people living in the frozen Siberia, I wouldn't be able to make money selling my books to those people in the first place.

BUT, as Google scanned my book and place it online, people all over, as long as they can get access to the Net, can, in theory, access my book.

So what if those people reading my book online don't pay me?

I ain't losing any money one way or another.

Those who sued Google are greedy bastards.

And no, I am not employed by Google.

Re:If I were an author ...

[ackthpt]

It's the case of a blind dog attempting biting a hand which feeds it, because it can't see that the food doesn't magically appear, but has been delivered by the hand it can smell, and thus growls and snaps at.

I, also, would prefer as much visibility of any of my works as Google could provide. I've certainly bought several books because one search lead to another and suddenly I'm looking at a book I'd never have heard of, but contains some fascinating material relevent to my research. As a result I now have a highly comprehensive knowledge of various events in history and a library of books which overflows my shelves. Good thing these people are trying to fight it, I don't know where I'd put more books. :-\

Re:If I were an author ...

[Hazel Bergeron]

So because you choose to have Google profit from your work, you declare everyone else must have the choice taken away from them?

I shan't speak in defence of copyright or "intellectual property" but I shall speak in defence of rule of law. And while there is copyright law then the largest corporations in the land must obey it as much as the man on the street. The worst possible progression of copyright is for big businesses to either sidestep it with lawyering or (as seemed to be happening with some recent lobbying of Cameron in the UK) changing of the law specifically to advance particular corporations' business aims.

If we are to have an alternative to copyright then it must balance rights and obligations. For example, a Stallmanesque philosophy would require Google to release the source for its digitisations so Google is at no advantage over any other individual or organisation which wishes to redistribute works. Google isn't even offering this.

No, there is nothing good about what Google is doing, except to the very short sighted.

Re:If I were an author ...

[wolvesofthenight]

You make a strong point for why an author should want their works on Google. But I think a better analogy might be that the authors are like a starving dog biting the hand of someone who is tying to tie it up and shove steaks down its gullet. Google is not offering the authors a (possibly beneficial) service; it is doing everything it can to force it upon them.

The fact remains that Google is scanning large numbers of books and posting them freely on the internet. And, while it may not be their only motive, they are doing it for their own profit.

Should massive digital libraries be allowed? Yes. However, this should be take care of by two things: For slightly old works, reasonable limits on copyright duration - thus allowing anyone to create such an index. For new works, the copyright holder should be able to offer their works as they see fit. And the idea that they should have to opt out of Google copying their work is insane (even if there is some appeal to the idea of the RIAA/MPAA having to opt out of people copying their works).

Re:If I were an author ...

[msauve]

"I DO write for a living. I happen to takke greeat straights to bee voluble ohn-line, and be as respecctful as possible to thost that opposte me."

+5, Funny.

Re:If I were an author ...

[bfields]

"Rule of law"?

Look, google isn't distributing copies of these books. They're searching for terms in them and returning snippets. That doesn't compete in the least with the business of people that are selling the entire book.

"there is nothing good about what Google is doing, except to the very short sighted."

They're providing an unprecedented and extremely useful service: the ability to perform full-text searches of entire multiple libraries' worth of books in fractions of a second from anywhere in the world.

If we require opt-in, then the immense number of rights owners involved is likely to make building such a service impractical.

We could be having the same argument about libraries: why shouldn't copyright owners be consulted about whether they want their books loaned out?

Fortunately the drafters of the copright law produced something flexible enough to provide incentives to authors while still allowing for services such as libraries. Flexible enough, even, to accommodate services like Google's that didn't exist at the time--fair use and first-sale rights provide all the basis the courts would need to find Google well within the rule of law, and I very much hope that's what happens.

Re:If I were an author ...

[shentino]

I'd say that the snippet things easily count as fair use.

Re:If I were an author ...

[khipu]

So because you choose to have Google profit from your work, you declare everyone else must have the choice taken away from them?

Nobody is taking your choice away; if you don't want your books on Google, just tell them. Furthermore, just because you own a copyright doesn't mean other people can't profit from your content without paying you. Copyright doesn't give you exclusive rights to any possible use of your works, it only gives you a specific, limited monopoly.

I shan't speak in defence of copyright or "intellectual property" but I shall speak in defence of rule of law.

Yes, so shall I: the rule of law in the US includes fair use and the public domain. "Authors guilds" and publishers have been trying to subvert the rule of law for decades by trying to carve out ever increasing special privileges. By default, Google makes books searchable and publishes snippets that is fair use.

You and the publishers want to steal from the public and from companies like Google, by deriving profit from fair use activities and content you don't even own. It is high time that the rule of law puts a stop to people like you.

Re:If I were an author ...

[bhcompy]

You have no right to full-text searches of books. Yea, it's great. Awesome, really. It helps a ton with research of all kinds, or just finding that quote in a particular book or set of books, but this is something that should most likely be part of a licensed database. People pay good money for access to databases to search published journals. This is of the same class.

Re:If I were an author ...

[viperidaenz]

and if we pay for it and realise it wasn't worth what we paid - because the worth cannot be determined without access to the content, can we get a refund? If I go to the library to read your book, will you get mad at the library for taking your profits?

Its also my understanding that Google isn't in the business of providing unfetted access to the entirety of the books it digitises, only small parts thereof. If people could easily determine if a book was not worth purshasing, consumers risk is lower and authors would sell fewer copies.

Re:If I were an author ...

[Baloroth]

You have no right to full-text searches of books. Yea, it's great. Awesome, really. It helps a ton with research of all kinds, or just finding that quote in a particular book or set of books, but this is something that should most likely be part of a licensed database. People pay good money for access to databases to search published journals. This is of the same class.

Why? Published journals are a somewhat different class, since the original author isn't going to get money if the searcher buys the journal (generally). A book, on the other hand, they will.

And just because people pay money for it doesn't mean that is how it should be, either.

Re:If I were an author ...

[gclef]

I pity your editor.

Re:If I were an author ...

[macshit]

Er, well until there are reasonable limits on copyright duration—and fat chance of that happening any time soon given the massive corporate lobbying power behind making copyright infinitely long—attempts like Google's to work around the copyright lobby seem to be the only way to preserve the public interest. It's far more important to spread knowledge widely than preserve the illusory "rights" of dead authors for works written 75 years ago...

A solution that allows everybody to do this, rather than just Google, is of course superior. But there has to be something, and better just Google than nobody (other parties can of course make their own deals, or try to change the law, independent of what Google is doing). If you don't like that, then by all means press for a more universal solution—but the status quo is unacceptable.

Re:If I were an author ...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot. Come back later, after you've created something of value that other people want to use to their profit, to no profit of yours.
 
And yes, I have actually created the said something of value.
 
You fucktards always want others to give you what they make, for no payment. You weaken our society and drive us toward mediocrity. You sicken me.

Re:If I were an author ...

[optimism]

As a result I now have a highly comprehensive knowledge of what a handful of people have guessed about various events in history

FTFY.

Never confuse reading a few books about a historical event, with first-hand knowledge of that event.

If you want to learn about a historical event more than 80 years ago, you have to read at least four historians: two at opposite extremes, and two in the middle. And even then, you're just reading some educated guesses.

If you care to learn about a historical event in the last 80 years, try to find several people who actually participated in that event, and talk to them in person. The people who really know what happened, pretty much never write about it. But many of them would be very happy to talk to someone about it.

Re:If I were an author ...

[Troed]

You have no right to full-text searches of books

Why not?

Re:If I were an author ...

[pumashoes]

www.greatpumashoes.com

Re:If I were an author ...

[perryizgr8]

no, fuck you. if google does it, it must be okay.

Re:If I were an author ...

[wolvesofthenight]

So far as I have seen, Google is not pushing the issue of copyright duration. They don't appear to treat older works differently. They don't appear to be arguing about copyright duration in court. And they don't seem to have a massive lobbying campaign going on for shorter copyright duration. Or is all this happening and I missed it? - could be since I don't spend all my time following what Google is up to.

Re:If I were an author ...

[bfields]

"You have no right to full-text searches of books."

That's exactly the question posed by the case. I suspect you can make a good case that current last *does* grant you that right.

And, then whether it does or not, you can ask: *should* the law grant that right? Deciding that is a matter of trying to decide in which world we'd all be better off: a world where authors got a little more incentive to write (thanks to the additional revenue stream from licensing to search engines) versus a world in which a project like Google books is possible. Personally, I'm pulling for the latter.

"People pay good money for access to databases to search published journals."

And they get access to some little walled garden of works controlled by one publisher or consortium of publishers.

Compare that to full-text search of multiple major university libraries.

And ask if there's any chance we'll ever get the latter, if the only way to do it is to track down ever single copyright holder.

Re:If I were an author ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Google operate in many countries. 'Fair use' as defined in the US is not the test in most of them (eg in the UK, but I'm sure you can look it up for France and Germany which are more relevant to the summary). Besides, they copied the whole work from the books to their computers, not just snippets.

Re:If I were an author ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole point of copyright is that it's meant to give up a little public good in return for some benefit to the author/publisher. Now we have the ability to make research easier than it's ever been in the history of mankind, suddenly not being able to copy and index that knowledge is a much bigger disadvantage to the public good than could ever have been originally envisaged. I agree Google are technically, legally in the wrong but it's so rare that a big company with money behind it takes a stand that benefits the public that I'm prepared to overlook the fact that they're doing it wholly for selfish reasons. It's high time copyright was adjusted to make it fair and reasonable in a digital world.

Re:If I were an author ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an author, with several science fiction short stories published in a variety of print books. I have a novel (hopefully) coming out soon. Conceptually, I have no problem having my book in a searchable database such as Google. I also use Google's great products every day. But here's the thing, and I know I will get a lot of flak from this "information wants to be free" crowd. I believe people should have to pay for copyrighted work. That's right. Even Google.

Why? Because artists deserve compensation for their work, and they (and not a corporation) should choose when, where and how that work appears. This is known as an "author's contract," and is common in the industry.

Let's not deceive ourselves. Google is doing this as a money-making exercise. Authors should always have a VERY CLEAR way of determining when, where and how they receive royalties from the use of their books. Google will certainly use my book and a million others to make money. And not everyone who searches through my book will buy it. Yet Google can still make money through advertising or other means from my content, i.e. by building user preferences for further marketing. So they would be making money (or increasing value) by using my work and not paying me for it. Well, that's just not fair, folks.

The library comparison fails too. Libraries *pay* for books, and they pay handsomely. In fact, a very large fraction of an author's book sales comes directly from libraries. The cash-strapped, struggling libraries pay for content, so why does super-rich Google get to profit off my work for free?

The opt-in, though cumbersome, is the only workable solution, as it lets copyright holders regain control.

Yes, tracking down the owner of "orphaned" works, i.e. where the copyright holder isn't clear, will be problematic. And there's the problem of reaching an older generation of copyright holders, people who may not be as connected as we are and therefore able to "opt-out" of Google. But this is Google we are talking about, with a very large staff of very intelligent people. I'm sure they can figure it out. But I do not believe a corporate entity like Google should have a right to use my work for profit without allowing me to profit from that as well. It's pretty simple. I deserve to be paid for use of my work, in any form, in any medium.

Re:If I were an author ...

[Oligonicella]

"We could be having the same argument about libraries: why shouldn't copyright owners be consulted about whether they want their books loaned out?"

Libraries purchase the book, Google does not. That single purchased copy is loaned out and returned. Google does not.

"...fair use and first-sale rights provide all the basis..."

That doctrine allows the purchaser to transfer (i.e., sell, lend or give away) a particular lawfully made copy of the copyrighted work without permission once it has been obtained. (from Wikipedia).

Google does not purchase the books so no, first-sale rights would not apply. Fair use would depend on the extend of their display of text.

Not exactly cut and dry.

Re:If I were an author ...

[bfields]

I believe people should have to pay for copyrighted work.

Fine. That's not the question, though--the question is *which uses* of copyrighted works should people have to pay for?

The Lord of the Rings movies required payment to whoever inherited Tolkien's rights.

The warehouses worth of epic fantasy written since then required none.

That's a lot of money people who got paid for stuff that wouldn't have existed without Tolkien having set pen to paper.

Most of us would argue that's a reasonable trade off: Tolkien didn't get everything he could be said to have deserved, but there was also a lot of interesting and creative work done that wouldn't have been if it all had to go through the bottleneck of his heirs.

they would be making money (or increasing value) by using my work and not paying me for it.

That happens all the time. For-profit institutions have libraries too. The price I paid for one measly copy of K&R doesn't begin to approach the value of the income I've received from what I've learned from it.

Again, for me it comes down to weighing practical consequences: how much income are authors going to give up, versus what kinds of services are no longer going to be possible?

Yes, tracking down the owner of "orphaned" works... will be problematic. And there's the problem of reaching an older generation of copyright holders.... But this is Google we are talking about.... I'm sure they can figure it out.

How?

A big university library has around 10 million books. Google claims a goal of scanning 130 million. There are something like a million more published a year.

Forget orphaned work or hard-to-reach authors; just consider authors that still individually hold rights to their books. How do you get legal permission from millions of them, at a per-book cost (I'm not even talking about the licensing; just the labor cost to contact them and verify that they agreed) that makes the whole project feasible?

And once you do, what do you actually expect to actually wring out of them for your 10 millionth (or whatever it works out to be) of the advertising income due to google books?

Hey, I'm just hand-waving here myself, but my intuition here is that if we require opt-in, we're just not going to get anything like Google books in our lifetimes, if ever.

Re:If I were an author ...

[Oligonicella]

Unless allowed by the copyright holder, copyright violation.

Re:If I were an author ...

[Oligonicella]

"And ask if there's any chance we'll ever get the latter, if the only way to do it is to track down ever single copyright holder."

The inability to accomplish a dream is no reason to abrogate the rights of people.

Re:If I were an author ...

[Oligonicella]

"Now we have the ability to make research easier than it's ever been in the history of mankind..."

Boy, that *sounds* nice - until you remember it was science fiction writers who complained.

Research? Bullshit. Wholesale copying of any and all books is not done for research, it's done to bring people into using Google and generating revenue *for* Google.

Re:If I were an author ...

[Troed]

Interesting hypothesis and not something I would immediately consider to be true without citation. I'm Swedish though, maybe there are small differences between countries.

Re:If I were an author ...

[bfields]

The inability to accomplish a dream is no reason to abrogate the rights of people.

Again, that's circular reasoning, when the question we're trying to ask is exactly the question of whether people should have this particular right.

Some rights don't have to be granted: we take them to be, as they say, "self evident". I don't consider the right to have a government-granted monopoly on certain texts or ideas as among those inherent moral rights.

Note, that's not the same as saying that I don't think such rights should be granted--I think they *should* be--I'm only saying that we do it mainly for practical reasons (as an incentive to creation and dissemination, etc.) rather than a priori "moral" reasons.

But even if you do consider copyright a "moral" to some degree, I don't think that continues to a good guide once you get down to questions like "does the owner of a book need the author's permission to allow a 3rd party to scan the book for the sole purpose of searching it and presenting snippets giving context for the search results".

So it really does come down to the question of weighing the practical advantages and disadvantages to the world of granting that specific right.

And considered that way, the ability to "accomplish a dream" in one or the other case really is one of the factors to be weighed.

And full-text search of 10's of millions of books--that's a hell of a dream.

Re:If I were an author ...

[Taco Cowboy]

You're an idiot. Come back later, after you've created something of value that other people want to use to their profit, to no profit of yours.

And yes, I have actually created the said something of value.

You fucktards always want others to give you what they make, for no payment. You weaken our society and drive us toward mediocrity. You sicken me.

The above came from one Anonymous Coward

How much credence should I give that guy, that he or she had "created something of value" ?

Re:If I were an author ...

[JimFive]

So they would be making money (or increasing value) by using my work and not paying me for it.

So, you would be happy if Google bought 1 copy of every book and then put it in their search engine? How about if they buy it used, or have a book drive and collect them for free? What if Google doesn't want to keep a copy of your book around, would you sell them the right to index it for a payment equal to your royalty on one copy?

It's pretty simple. I deserve to be paid for use of my work, in any form, in any medium.

No you don't. If someone writes a review of your book they can quote it without paying you. If someone writes a parody or a fanfic of your book you don't get paid.

You are not going to get paid by everyone who reads your book. Some people will get it from the library. Some will borrow it from friends. Some will read it in the bookstore and then put it back on the shelf. Some will buy it used. And Many will not read it at all.
--
JimFive

Defense?

[geminidomino]

Regardless of my own opinions on the state of copyright/IP law in the US (I can't speak for the other countries listed in TFS), it is what it is. So I have to ask... What is Google's defense? It can't be the "public good" or "cultural preservation" play, because those have already been stabbed, short, burned, poisoned, beheaded, then drawn and quartered.

So what the hell are they claiming that's had the lawsuits lasting six frigging years?

While I think it's a good thing they're trying to do (though maybe not their motivations), I really thought they would have been bitchslapped down a long, long time ago. What cards are they holding here?

Re:Defense?

[Stormy Dragon]

Their reasoning is probably a more fancy version of: it's only copyright violation when little people do it to a big corporation. When a big corporation wants to do it to an unknown author, that should be perfectly legal.

Re:Defense?

[Ichijo]

What is Google's defense?

Fair use. The same way a person can reproduce short snippets of a copyrighted work without violating the copyright, Google Books allows you to search scanned books and view short sections of text at a time.

Re:Defense?

[icebike]

Google's defense is that they are doing nothing illegal.

Please take the time to educate yourself on this issue.

Re:Defense?

[geminidomino]

Ya think? I would never have guessed that they say that they're not doing anything illegal or actionable.

The question is how do they justify that duplicating entire books is not illegal or actionable? The clusterfuck that is copyright law would seem to put them firmly onto the wrong side of that line.

Re:Defense?

[broken_chaos]

Fair use is not solely determined on length of the copied passage -- in fact, that's not a determining factor in the law at all, it's merely the convention.

Re:Defense?

[SecurityGuy]

And how do you think they facilitate this searching and viewing of short sections? They copied the books. Without permission. That's copyright violation.

Re:Defense?

[msauve]

But Google themselves doesn't copy "short snippets," they copy everything. If they had license to copy everything, then making short snippets available might fall under fair use. But, those are two separate instances.

I fail to see how making snippets available makes the original copying fall under fair use.

Re:Defense?

[ortholattice]

What is Google's defense?

Fair use. The same way a person can reproduce short snippets of a copyrighted work without violating the copyright, Google Books allows you to search scanned books and view short sections of text at a time.

However, they reproduced (for profit-making purposes) and are storing the entire content of books from which the snippets are displayed.

I've been called out by a librarian when she felt I was copying "too much" from a book. Why does Google get carte blanche to copy millions of books in their entirety? At a minimum, shouldn't Google at least have to purchase each book that they copied?

I'm not one to defend the current state of copyright laws, but there seems to be a double standard here.

Re:Defense?

[Caerdwyn]

That's what Kinko's Copies said when they were sued. They lost.

Re:Defense?

[Ichijo]

Actually, the length of the copied passage is in fact one of the determining factors: "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole."

Re:Defense?

[icebike]

But google hasn't lost.

How many threads are you going to shop that worn out link around on?

Re:Defense?

[Ichijo]

Libraries are allowed to copy the entire content of books. Why should Google be prohibited from doing the same? There seems to be a double standard here.

Re:Defense?

[Roogna]

So it's fair use if I go to the library and scan every book there. As long as I only share snippets it's somehow legal? Why do I feel like that would somehow not be how the courts would see it with an individual...

Re:Defense?

[bfields]

"What is Google's defense?"

They're not distributing copies of books--they're doing searches and returning small snippets. The books are scanned, with the permission of their owners, only in order to allow those searches.

I would have thought first-sale rights would permit the owners of books to have their own copies scanned, and that fair use would permit Google to search them and return snippets.

None of this cuts into the publisher's traditional source of profits at all, as the publisher is still who a member of the public goes to to get a copy of the book.

If we really think copyright holders should have complete control over how every copy of their work is *used*, not only distributed, then they should have cut off the problem at the source and forbidden libraries....

Re:Defense?

[Anonymous Coward]

There isn't anything in the fair use test that would indicate Google is not within the bounds of fair use. There isn't anything to say they are within such bounds either, but... thats sort of the point of the lawsuit.

This is a use case that is outside the settled law and precedent. Google is copying the whole work ... but why anybody (including the publishers) should give a damn about that, I don't know. Google isn't a person. It is not reading these works. The employees aren't either. If the use of the copy is fair, then the copy, even though it is an entire copy, isn't in violation of copyright. And because Google isn't distributing works in their entirety, they have a case for fair use.

I don't know about you, but the last time I wrote an english paper and quoted (fair use) a book, I'd read the whole goddamn thing before I copied a small part of it. I don't see the meaningful difference here. Thats an entire copy in my head, even if it is a poor copy, before I snip out bits I wanted to show someone else. Which is what Google is doing. If you want to claim that a poor copy in my head and a clean copy in Google's servers is meaningfully different.. then.. you might want to be careful that you are opening the door that copying is okay as long as the copies are "poor".

Re:Defense?

[Holi]

Because libraries are not for profit institutions.

Re:Defense?

[icebike]

I've been called out by a librarian when she felt I was
copying "too much" from a book. Why does Google
get carte blanche to copy millions of books in their entirety? At a minimum, shouldn't
Google at least have to purchase each book that they copied?
 

On October 28, 2008 the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers, and Google announced that they had settled Authors Guild v. Google. Google agreed to a $125 million payout, $45 million of that to be paid to rightsholders whose books were scanned without permission.

cite

Note that these authors were not aggrieved, they were simply complainants. Not one of them alleged that google copied THEIR book fro the universities that partnered with google.

Re:Defense?

[icebike]

And Google also provides these snippits for free.
They do not sell them.
They have competitors in this field as well.

One might as well claim that libraries making copies (as allowed by the above reference) are trying for a competitive advantage
by having a complete collection to attract patronage, and funding.

Re:Defense?

[initialE]

I compare what Google is doing to archaeology. In many cases, the rights holders of the books that they are copying do not give consent in the way that King Tut did not give consent to have his tomb opened and his treasures taken and displayed for profit.

Re:Defense?

[Baloroth]

The difference is that Kinko's was acting in a way that specifically, by intent and desire, reduced the sale of the books and journals in question. Google, on the other hand, is digitizing the books so that people can find them and buy them. Those two are entirely different acts.

Re:Defense?

[martin-boundary]

And Google also provides these snippits for free. They do not sell them.

So do pirates. Are you arguing that libraries, Google, and pirates should *all* be able to copy anything they like, and make it available as snippets? Pirates use bittorrent. The nature of the bittorrent protocol is to cut up a file into tiny snippets, and distribute each of the snippets separately, not necessarily to the same destination.

Re:Defense?

[Ichijo]

Pirates use bittorrent. The nature of the bittorrent protocol is to cut up a file into tiny snippets, and distribute each of the snippets separately, not necessarily to the same destination.

That would make an interesting defense, if you could prove that you aren't making more of the file available than would be protected by Fair Use.

Re:Defense?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

And Google also provides these snippits for free.
They do not sell them.

That's ridiculous naive. Google is absolutely not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. They are doing it because tracking what books people read from helps build a better "consumer profile" which they do sell for vast profits through adsense and other means (don't forget - they bought doubleclick).

Re:Defense?

[DerekLyons]

"What is Google's defense?"

They're not distributing copies of books--they're doing searches and returning small snippets. The books are scanned, with the permission of their owners, only in order to allow those searches.

Except... They're not returning snippets, they're often returning as much as half or more of the book. And they're not doing it without the authors or right's holders permission. So, you're pretty much wrong on both counts - and so is Google. They've kept the suits alive with a variety of legal maneuvers such as the one described in TFA,
 

I would have thought first-sale rights would permit the owners of books to have their own copies scanned, and that fair use would permit Google to search them and return snippets.

First sale rights do not include providing copies to others. (What on earth would make you think it did?) And again, Google is returning *much* more than snippets.

Re:Defense?

[codegen]

I would have thought first-sale rights would permit the owners of books to have their own copies scanned, and that fair use would permit Google to search them and return snippets.

First sale rights means that I am allowed to sell the copy of a book that I bought. First sale rights does not allow me to let you scan my copy of the book. If Google had bought the books to scan, then you might have a point, but they are scanning books that they do not own.

Re:Defense?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is returning snippets unless authorized by the copyright holder to return more. You are wrong on all counts.

Re:Defense?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, you may be unaware, but there are lots of for-profit libraries. Historically, most libraries were not open to the public, but only to paying members.

Even now, LSSI has been taking over public libraries(37 libraries in California and another 15 in Oregon) as funds for were axed, and are turning them into for-profit ventures.

Re:Defense?

[pdxer]

Indeed, I've periodically read whole chapters or parts of chapters of books on Google Books. Sometimes it's saved me from having to buy the book.

Authors, take heart - Google will probably just give up on this project in a little while, like most of their projects.

Re:Defense?

[nbauman]

If I have a CD, I have a right to make a backup.

If a library owns a book, they have a right to scan it (or even to make a photocopy of a rare book for archival purposes). They have a right to use that scan within their building, or campus, to transmit to one other computer terminal at a time.

Google made a deal with the libraries. That's how they scanned the books. The libraries agreed to let Google distribute snippits. You can go into a library and photocopy several pages from a book.

Re:Defense?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are "largerer" then the entire publishing industry combined?

Re:Defense?

[bfields]

"First sale rights means that I am allowed to sell the copy of a book that I bought."

Apologies, I thought I remembered first sale include more general rights to make personal use of a copy, but I think you're right. (The same rights may still exist but more likely fall under fair use.)

"First sale rights does not allow me to let you scan my copy of the book."

If we permit a library to scan its own books, and then provide a google-books like search in them, then I wonder where we'd draw the line?:

- Universities A, B, and C each provide full-text search of their own collections.
- Google provides Google book searches by collating results from searches sent to A, B, and C.
- Google in addition rents and/or sells hardware and services necessary for A, B, and C to scan and provide full-text search to their collections. At this point it's just Google book search except that the data stored in Google's data servers is nominally still the university's.
- Google book search.

To me the differences all seem unimportant as long as the only use of the scans is to provide search results.

Re:Defense?

[ortholattice]

Libraries are allowed to copy the entire content of books. Why should Google be prohibited from doing the same? There seems to be a double standard here.

Because the library owns the books and Google does not. I can make a backup copy of a CD that I own. I cannot (legally) make a copy of a friend's CD and take it home with me.

Re:Defense?

[marcello_dl]

I could scrape google web results put it into a db and offer the first few ones, then.
The "yo dawg i herd you like search results" engine.

I wonder how google can justify fighting that and then doing exactly the same to books.

Re:Defense?

[ortholattice]

If I have a CD, I have a right to make a backup.

Yes, but I don't have the right to make a "backup" of a friend's CD and take it home with me.

If a library owns a book, they have a right to scan it (or even to make a photocopy of a rare book for archival purposes). They have a right to use that scan within their building, or campus, to transmit to one other computer terminal at a time.

Yes, but (as I understand it) Google took the entirety of the scans off campus, not just snippets of them at at time.

Google made a deal with the libraries. That's how they scanned the books. The libraries agreed to let Google distribute snippits. You can go into a library and photocopy several pages from a book.

The library has no right to make a "deal" with Google, since they do not own the copyright to their books. Google did not photocopy several pages, they photocopied entire books. The library thus "distributed" entire copies of books to Google, for profit-making purposes. The fact that Google re-distributes only snippets to a 3rd party (the public) seems irrelevant. I cannot legally make a copy of a library book even if I promise to distribute only snippets to a 3rd party.

If Google wins, will I then be able to copy entire library books also, like they do? Somehow I don't think so.

Re:Defense?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The libraries agreed to let Google distribute snippits.

As far as I'm aware, libraries have not yet been granted legislative authority, so what they agreed in this case is irrelevant. They have no legal power to transfer the special privileges they are granted in respect of copyright to other parties.

Re:Defense?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

If we really think copyright holders should have complete control over how every copy of their work is *used*, not only distributed, then they should have cut off the problem at the source and forbidden libraries....

I never understand this argument. With the exception of a very small number of national reference libraries whose mandate is typically cultural preservation, libraries have to buy copies of their books like everyone else, and they can still only lend one copy out to one person at a time. No extra copying or duplicated access is going on here, any more than lending your book to a friend is copying.

Now, photocopying in libraries is a different question, but such copying is subject to copyright and libraries are usually very aware of this and the need to prevent people taking advantage so they don't risk bad consequences for the libraries themselves.

Re:Defense?

[Anonymous Coward]

ONLY if they distribute

Re:Defense?

[bfields]

"libraries have to buy copies of their books like everyone else, and they can still only lend one copy out to one person at a time. No extra copying or duplicated access is going on here"

So, the question is which uses of the copyrighted work require the rights-holders permissions, and which don't. It would be convenient to be able to draw a simple bright line at "copying", but that's never how it's worked:

- photocopying a small part of a book for your personal use in research is generally fine (but: go see reams of fair use guidelines for details).
- renting is complicated even though there's no copying involved (if I remember right: generally "first sale" permits it, but there are specific prohibitions in the US in the case of music).
- Using a character from a novel in a movie may involve no literal copying, but may require permission even when the plot and dialog is new.

Computers fuzz the lines too: you normally have to copy a program into RAM to run it, though most people would consider that ordinary use of a copy that they owned.

And personally I don't see a strong "moral" argument from one side or the other in these cases--I think the best way to decide where to draw these lines, however messy it may be, is weighing the likely practical consequences.

Re:Defense?

[Anonymous Coward]

The same way you transcoding your music to MP3 is fair use. They format shifted their own copies and they only redistribute small snippets (which is what the exclusive right to make copies in copyright really means, the right to redistribute copies of the work that you made yourself). Now, you can redistribute whole works and fall under fair use provisions, but fair use is an affirmative defense regardless of how much you redistribute, which means you have to prove that your use fell under fair use, the burden of proof is no longer on the plaintiff if you assert fair use.

Re:Defense?

[Anonymous Coward]

You really think Google does all this stuff and give it for free if it didn't benefit them in some form, wether its monetary or in some other form? Wow, talk about naive in the truest sense, although from reading slashdot everyone once in a while you my friend are not alone.

Re:Defense?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

So, the question is which uses of the copyrighted work require the rights-holders permissions, and which don't.

Sure, and I agree with you that this is not so much a moral question as a practical one. Copyright is ultimately an economic tool, as distinct from for example moral rights (in the legal sense).

Computers fuzz the lines too: you normally have to copy a program into RAM to run it, though most people would consider that ordinary use of a copy that they owned.

As a point of interest, the validity of generalised click-through EULAs in Europe is rather suspect for precisely that reason. If you bought the software via a third party, then your basic purchase contract is with them alone. Even if you bought from the source, if you didn't see the EULA before the purchase then clearly you didn't understand it and accept it as part of the purchase contract. Either way, the only consideration a copyright holder is really offering you in return for accepting their additional EULA terms is permission to make the kind of copy you mentioned. However, European law explicitly permits making any copies necessary for the normal use of the product anyway without regard to copyright (it has done for a few years now) so arguably that is not really any consideration at all. Given that as a basic principle of contract law there must be consideration in both directions for any contract to exist...

I'm looking forward to the test case for this one, as I would think a technically knowledgeable IP lawyer could make a very strong case that EULAs cannot be legally binding contracts under a lot of circumstances where they are presented as if they were today. That said, I don't think it's a slam-dunk, because industrial lobbyists would be out in force and even official reports from government departments seem to take it as read that such agreements can constitute valid contracts.

Re:Defense?

[nbauman]

The copyright laws are written broadly and generally, and they don't define specific rights for most things. Their definition of "fair use" isn't specific enough to let you know whether a particular use is fair use or not.

That's why fair use is defined by the courts, in a long series of decisions. So they don't need legislative authority. They depend on court decisions.

There are no decisions on exactly this issue, or they wouldn't be in court.

The library had a right to scan their copyrighted books. They had a right to call in an outside contractor (Google) to scan their books. They had a right to make a card catalog entry for each of those books.

They have a right to let their patrons make a copy of several pages from a book. If the book is digitized, they have a right to let their patrons read the digitized copy within the library. They have a right to let their patrons make copies from the digitized source.

The question is, do they have a right to let an outside contractor make an index of snippits for use within their own library? I think they do. If they can make a card catalog entry, it's not much different from indexing snippits. Snippits have a clear value to society.

Do they have a right to let people outside the library read snippits of the digitized book under fair use? Snippits might be as short as a sentence. This has the value to society of enabling people to conduct full-text searches through entire libraries.

If it's fair use to have a library patron come in and copy a few pages from a book, why isn't it fair use to have a library patron access that book online and read snippits?

It's reasonable to conclude under the copyright act that they do have this right.

Re:Defense?

[Caerdwyn]

Google doesn't have the right to make that decision, or appoint itself as publisher. A book already has a publisher; Google is saying "we are going to steal that role, and to hell with what the author and publisher say. We have more lawyers." There is no difference between what Google is doing and walking into a bookstore and copying what you find, without asking the publisher, author, or bookstore. The amount of material copied is irrelevant; this isn't "fair use".

It's identical. Google is just using a scanner instead of a photocopier.

This is all about Google forcing its projects down everyone's throats, just like Google publishing data about your WiFi network or Facebook selling everything they know about you to anyone with enough money. People scream about "evil corporations" ignoring the law to lock themselves into the top of a market or take what they have no legal or moral claim to; how is this different? Oh yeah, you don't have to pay for books that you otherwise would have had to pay for. YOU benefit, so it's okay. I guess.

Re:Defense?

[doom]

Except... They're not returning snippets, they're often returning as much as half or more of the book. And they're not doing it without the authors or right's holders permission.

Nope. Try again.

If they don't have the rights, they just show you a couple of lines (and typically not enough to even figure out what's being said).

But then, think about the next step: if I wanted to defeat this I'd hit google with a dictionary (preferably using a distributed attack), gather the images of little snippets of the text, and glue them together (probably after running them through OCR software).

Re:Defense?

[nbauman]

If Google wins, will I then be able to copy entire library books also, like they do? Somehow I don't
think so.

Libraries can copy entire books, under certain circumstances.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/usc_sec_17_00000108----000-.html

Re:Defense?

[Holi]

Private does not mean for profit.

I have been a member of the Atheneum in Providence RI for my whole life. It is a private library but it is most definitely not a for profit venture.

Personnally?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it were me as an individual I would already have been tried executed and my family harassed for this for the next 10 generations. Oh Google? Well why didn't you say so....

Problems with copyright law...

[wolvesofthenight]

What Google is doing is exactly the sort of thing copyright law is supposed to prevent. They are copying massive amounts of copyrighted works and using them for their own profit without permission from the copyright holders.

Sure, I love the idea of a computer search engine for books. And I can see how it could be very advantageous for an author to have their work on Google books. And I think that the term on copyright is far too long. Having said that, the courts should have put a stop to what Google is doing long ago. With something this clear cut, Google should have already been forced to pay damages. For that matter, they should have been the target of some of the government's anti-efforts.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[Anonymous Coward]

pay damages to whom you idiot? the problem is orphaned works where the authors are unkown or do not want to be known. Seems reasonable to me that these authors have not interest in any profits.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[icebike]

They do not provide entire works. Simply short excepts.
If you want the entire work that is still under copyright they will show you an except and then direct you to where you can buy the book.

You can read a few pages, but you invariably hit a page that says:

you have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book

Then there will be links on the side for places to buy the book, one of which MAY be google books, or maybe not.

Try it out on this book.

Any author, or his estate can opt out. None but a tiny minority do, because it sells books.

This is old news, and you obviously haven't kept up with this issue.
The only item under contention are abandoned works by unknown or dead authors with no heirs published after 1923. That is all. You've gotten yourself all worked up over nothing.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[shentino]

here's an idea.

Make it opt-in if the author is known, opt out if the author is unknown.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[icebike]

Why?

What they do now is legal. The Authors like it that way. It sells books.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[msauve]

It doesn't matter what The Authors think. It does matter what the copyright holders think. If they like it, as you claim, why are they suing?

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[Rockoon]

You can read a few pages [snip] Try it out on this book [google.com].

This must be some new definition of the word "few" that authors werent previously aware of. So many pages in fact that I cant be bothers to fucking count them. Thats at least a few dozen pages, asshole.

It almost seems reasonable in the case of fiction (the spin you were going for by linking to a fiction book... thats why you are an asshole) but it just doesnt fucking fly for technical works, and yes technical works are covered just as egregiously.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[Caerdwyn]

The law very clearly states that unless you have a "yes" in writing, the answer is "no". All rights not specifically granted remain with the creator of the material. And as for "unknown"... says who? Just about every book out there has this little line saying "written by". There's your "unknown" right there. If Google can't contact the author, tough. If Google CLAIMS they can't contact the author (meaning, they never tried), tough. No signature, no permission.

They did this to me with a book I wrote in 2004. One day I was checking on how it was doing and SURPRISE there it was in Google Books. They had not contacted me or my publisher.

In any event, neither you nor Google have the right to decide what to do with someone else's property. I find it amazing that people like you are very happy to take others' works and information without compensation yet get all bent out of shape when Facebook and CarrierIQ do the same to you.

%/s/Information wants to be free/I don't want to pay for others information/g

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[Holi]

They may only provide short excerpts, but they do copy the entire work without permission and they use the fact that you can search the entire work for their own profit. They are not trying to sell the authors books they are trying to use that database to entice more users for Google. Google has no right to profit off the authors works and the fact that Google is doing this strictly for profit pretty much negates fair-use. Opt-out is a poor excuse for getting permission.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[shentino]

Indeed.

I'm curious what even gives the plaintiffs in this case standing to sue in the first place.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[russotto]

The law very clearly states that unless you have a "yes" in writing, the answer is "no".

Actually, it doesn't. The "in writing" requirement applies only to transfer of copyright, not to permission/licensing. And of course fair use and first sale and uses not restricted by copyright law require no permission at all.

Just about every book out there has this little line saying "written by". There's your "unknown" right there. If Google can't contact the author, tough. If Google CLAIMS they can't contact the author (meaning, they never tried), tough. No signature, no permission.

No standing to sue, no case.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which... indicates that you DON'T understand what copyright was intended to prevent. The amount of copying, nor the fact that it is for commercial and profiteering purposes, is not what copyright was intended to prevent. Copyright in books was intended to prevent publishers from being publishers without the author's consent. Google isn't publishing these books. They're copying the book, which is otherwise known as indexing, and then serving up small snippets. So that readers and books can get together easier. Increasing the public good, as fair use was always intended to do.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[khipu]

What Google is doing is exactly the sort of thing copyright law is supposed to prevent. They are copying massive amounts of copyrighted works and using them for their own profit without permission from the copyright holders.

Copyright law isn't intended to prevent people from profiting from copyrighted works. If you publish a cookbook, I can use it to prepare meals and charge for them, for example. Copyright law gives copyright holders specific, limited rights in order to encourage them to publish and produce, nothing more. What Google is doing is no different from establishing a privately run reference service with a large staff that can look things up for you. They don't redistribute the works (unless the copyright holder gives them explicit permission).

With something this clear cut,

With something this clearcut, the court really should have kicked out authors and publishers as having no standing and no damages: any author or publisher who doesn't want to be on Google can just ask to be removed. What authors and publishers really want is to force Google to pay them no matter what. It's the usual rip-off of these groups of trying to get paid no matter what crap they produce.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[khipu]

The people behind the lawsuits are publishers and "authors guilds", organizations made obsolete by Google and electronic publishing. And they aren't suing over their own books (they could just have them removed), they are suing over the vast quantity of orphan works that they don't own but that would provide unwelcome free competition to their content.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[khipu]

Are you an author or publisher and don't want your books on Google? Remove them:

http://books.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=175010

Given that there are very few people like you and very few services like Google Books, opt-out is a reasonable default. Making opt-in the default because of a bunch of malcontent potty-mouths like you is unreasonable.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[Brannoncyll]

Interesting question: did you see a boost in sales as a result of Google adding your book to their searches?

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[msauve]

They must be representing copyright holders en masse, or they would have no standing for a copyright suit, and the case would have been thrown out long ago.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[SecurityGuy]

Except it's not really for a big corporation to just go ignore law because it impedes what they want to do, even if that big corporation is one most of us like most of the time.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[khipu]

Google isn't "ignoring the law". The law is somewhat unclear about this situation, but Google has a good argument that it is fair use. And to the degree that there is anything to be settled, I'm saying it should "opt-out" rather than "opt-in".

Besides, the big publishers are big corporations themselves, and unlike Google, publishers are obsolete and have a long history of being totally evil.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[Dan667]

you really mean the publishers. They often screw the authors who get nothing.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[arose]

Are the author's guilds the copyright holders? You claim they are...

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[pdxer]

Google isn't "ignoring the law". The law is somewhat unclear about this situation, but Google has a good argument that it is fair use. And to the degree that there is anything to be settled, I'm saying it should "opt-out" rather than "opt-in".

And you'd be wrong. Why should I, as an author, have to lift a finger just to make Google's life easier? I'm not making any money on what Google's doing. If they want to use something I've written, let them come and ask me for permission.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[Zironic]

You got that ass backwards. Legally you're required to ASK PERMISSION, you're not expected to be allowed to violate copyright until told off.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[wolvesofthenight]

Several pages is going beyond fair use. So is making a complete electronic copy when you do not own any copies (I am OK with complete electronic copies of books that they do own copies of - just not sharing them). And it is clear that copyright does not allow for someone to say that "I am copying all your works for commercial purposes. You have to opt out if you don't like this." Copyright even provides for punitive damages because this exactly how it is not supposed to work.

However, it does appear that the issue is not as clear cut as I originally thought.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a problem with the copyright law. When the copyright owner posted the copyright notice in the book, they already opted out of Google books. This is the purpose of the copyright notice! IANAL but I believe Google is breaking the law if they do not track down each author/copyright owner and get written permission to copy and host the book. If they don't know how to do this, or they don't want to take the time, then they should not post the book online. Of course, the copyright owner is within their rights to forbid it or negotiate a percentage of Google's profits from the website. If Google's arguement sets a precident then any car thief could just post online an opt out of getting your car stolen. If you don't opt out, then the car thief can steal your car without breaking the law. No difference.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[khipu]

Why should I, as an author, have to lift a finger just to make Google's life easier?

Because what Google is doing is what copyright is supposed to accomplish: dissemination of information, while still providing some limited incentives for authors. The "opt-in" default you want would lock up a lot of content that would otherwise be accessible, and that is contrary to the Constitutional goals of copyright.

People only have to ask you for permission to the extent that the law says, and the copyright law is supposed to be based on what benefits the public. Unlike property rights, copyright is not a natural right.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[khipu]

I think that's one of the reasons Google is asking for the case to be dismissed. But these are big and powerful organizations, and they aren't easy to dismiss even if they don't have much of a case.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[khipu]

Fair use isn't violating copyright, hence they don't need to ask permission.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[Anonymous Coward]

Opt out is reasonable, said the spammer.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[Rockoon]

Are you an author or publisher and don't want your books on Google? Remove them:

Why do I have to remove them, and how easy do you think that really is?

Ah lets see.. the first step is removing the book, for which I have a copyright, from Google Books is to contact a publisher, rather than Google. In other words, I must contact a party that does not even have the authority nor technical ability to remove the book. right?

Google does not offer an opt out. Now, stop claiming that they do, because they clearly don't. What Google wants you to do is convince some publisher to contact them about it. That is most definitely not fucking opt out.

its neither opt-in nor opt-out. Its fuck-you.

Re:Problems with copyright law...

[Caerdwyn]

No. Sales actually dropped. That may or may not be because of the natural falling off of a book's sales over time; there's no way to know. The vast majority of the sales of this book (about 5,000 copies) took place in the first six months after publication. There certainly was no increase. The point, however, is that I never gave Google permission to reproduce or distribute my work. Even if there had been an increase directly due to click-throughs, I would be all over Google's case. Those rights and the ability to transfer those rights are exclusively my own, and I granted those rights to a specific publisher, NOT to Google.

Google's actions communicated their thoughts clearly: authors have no rights, and any jackass with a scanner and OCR software can give away anything.

If You Were An Author, You'd Be Less Naive

[RobotRunAmok]

It is trivial today for the creator of a manuscript -- an author -- to put his book online, on his own website/blog, at his own pace. Sell a chapter at a time? Give away chapters, or the whole thing? Interact with readers in his own blog forum during the writing process? Add a Facebook and/or Twitter component to the self-promotion? Link his writing work to his speaking work, or other creative and possibly more profitable endeavors? The possibilities are near-endless, and an entire cottage industry to assist and advise authors with marketing their e-books (circumventing traditional publishing houses) is emerging. It's a wonderful, liberating time!

So why in hell would an author give away control over any of that to Google? Fuck Google and fuck Google's Greed! A smart author will put his book (or parts of it) online, and buy the appropriate Google ad words and do all the other SEO bullshit that puts money into Google's pocket for delivering eyeballs to his site. Google is already making money from someone else's creative work -- and that's fine, I get that. But scanning a book without the author's or publisher's permission because -- why? -- it gives them something additional to turn up in search results once indexed, something new to hang ads on? Just wrong in Oh So Many Ways.

Re:If You Were An Author, You'd Be Less Naive

[viperidaenz]

Scanning a book is no different than reading a book.

If I read a bunch of books that I own about a certain topic and someone later asks me question relating to that topic, is it illegal for me to answer that question by citing information I have read?

If a company scans a bunch of books it has legal access to about a certain topic and a user asks the company a question relating to that topic, is it illegal for the company to answer that qustion by citing information from the book?

If the answer to those two questions is different, something is wrong. If the answer to the first question is yes, I'd better stop reading books because telling anyone about anything I've read is illegal.

Re:If You Were An Author, You'd Be Less Naive

[phantomfive]

If a company scans a bunch of books it has legal access to about a certain topic and a user asks the company a question relating to that topic, is it illegal for the company to answer that qustion by citing information from the book?

If you read a book, memorize it, and then quote the entire thing in public, you may very well be breaking copyright law. You will have to see if your particular citation falls under fair use, but there are laws governing public performance of copyrighted works.

I'm not saying that's how it should be, just that's how it is.

Re:If You Were An Author, You'd Be Less Naive

[viperidaenz]

quote the entire thing in public

The last book I saw on Google books had pages deliberately missing with the text "some pages are omitted from this book preview" with links directing me to where I can buy my own copy.

Re:If You Were An Author, You'd Be Less Naive

[perryizgr8]

google is not 'quot the entire thing in public'. it shows you a few pages around the search term.

How long ago was the books published?

[Anonymous Coward]

Was it published within the last 28 years? If so, I kindly ask google to honor there request as it is there works and it there right what they do with it for better or worse.

If it is over 28 years old, fuck em, public domain bitch which is right where it should be after that long and any attempts to take it away from the public domain after that long goes against the purpose of copyright and is also unconstitutional so I will ignore it and urge anyone else to do the same.

Re:How long ago was the books published?

[Wandering Voice]

I agree in part, but I feel that 28 years is still too long of a time. I've already disregarded copyright for anything over 14 years. You want full control for all of time, well then don't release it.

Call me a thief, freetard or whatever, I don't care. The contract has already been broken.

Re:How long ago was the books published?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can understand the 28 year time frame for books though, stuff doesn't travel and get as circulated as music or movies so it takes longer for the return by comparison.

Many people will try out a new movie or song they never heard, not many want to try reading a new book, the spare time and motivation just isn't there for many.

Shut up and take my money

[adoarns]

All I want--far, far more than Netflix or Rhapsody--is to be able to give somebody money on a monthly basis to have access to nearly every book in every library in the world. Just somebody make this easy. I don't want to have to think, "Is reading a chapter of this obscure work on Russian formalism worth $0.50?" I just want to fucking click on a link, and read it.

Orphan Works

[Anonymous Coward]

Orphan Works, works for which the author is not known or after reasonable efforts cannot be contacted, can NEVER 'suddenly' be owned by some Guild or some Association. I'm not saying that what Google does is 100% right, but the orphan works problem cannot be ignored.

it's publishers, not authors, that sue

[khipu]

It's the publishers and "guilds" that see their monopoly profits fade away as they are being cut out of the business. In fact, any publisher and author who doesn't want to be on Google Books can simply notify Google and they'll remove their content. Their claims that they are protecting the authors are bullshit. What they really want is to stay in control of the publishing business. They also don't want free content and orphan works to appear because that would be unwelcome competition.

Publishers and "guilds" have conned some authors into supporting them; but any author with half a brain quickly figures out that Amazon, Google Books, and the e-book revolution are good for them.

thats simply wrong

[decora]

'fair use' is using small bits. not dozens of pages.

Re:thats simply wrong

[Olivier Galibert]

No it isn't. A full reproduction can be fair use. What you do with it is a large part of the definition.

    OG.

Re:thats simply wrong

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

A full reproduction can be fair use.

In theory, yes. In practice, hardly ever. And that's under US law, which has by far the most generous fair use provisions of pretty much any first world country, a source of some controversy given that the US is a signatory to the major international agreements on IP and is quite happy to try to push heavier enforcement of its own rightsholders' interests abroad.

Re:thats simply wrong

[Oligonicella]

Give one single real example.

Re:thats simply wrong

[bfields]

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Amount_.26_substantiality for some examples.

In addition to those they give (VCR's used for time-shifting, image thumbnailing), I'd also add copying a program into RAM for the purposes of executing it (assuming ownership of the copy on disk). (Distressingly, my memory is that the status of this isn't clear in the US, but elsewhere in the world I think it is).

All of the authors DID notify google.

[Anonymous Coward]

They put a big honking COPYRIGHT NOTICE at the front of their books, it says "Do NOT Copy without written permission in ADVANCE".

Anyone (including google) who makes a copy of the entire book is brazenly violating the posted copyright notice!

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[khipu]

They put a big honking COPYRIGHT NOTICE at the front of their books, it says "Do NOT Copy without written permission in ADVANCE". Anyone (including google) who makes a copy of the entire book is brazenly violating the posted copyright notice!

What you can and cannot do with a book is determined by copyright, not by those notices. Publishers have a habit of lying about what rights they do and do not have to the content they publish. I think anybody who claims more rights to their works than they actually have under the law should automatically lose all rights.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

What you can and cannot do with a book is determined by copyright, not by those notices.

So you keep saying, and of course you're right. What you seem to keep conveniently missing out is how mass-copying works as Google are doing is actually legal under fair use or any similar provision.

Perhaps you could make a start by explaining how Google are entitled to copy all of these works into their own database without at the very least paying for a legal copy of each and every one of them.

Then you can explain how republishing the work on-line qualifies.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[khipu]

So you keep saying, and of course you're right. What you seem to keep conveniently missing out is how mass-copying works as Google are doing is actually legal under fair use or any similar provision. Perhaps you could make a start by explaining how Google are entitled to copy all of these works into their own database without at the very least paying for a legal copy of each and every one of them.

Google does exactly the same for building their web index: copy all the content, then digest and index it. Indexing just entails effectively having a copy of the content around. Google didn't invent this, a lot of search engines before them did the same thing. There were a whole bunch of lawsuits over it and people lost (which is a good thing). Why should it be legal for electronic content and not legal for books?

Then you can explain how republishing the work on-line qualifies.

Google isn't "republishing" the work; unless you opt in or the book is out of copyright, all that is shown about a book is a few short snippets, just like web search results. And you can even opt out of that.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Why should it be legal for electronic content and not legal for books?

Web pages are already available for free, to anyone, on-line, with immediate access, from their original sources. That's five factors right there that distinguish the Web search engine case from what Google Books does.

Google isn't "republishing" the work; unless you opt in or the book is out of copyright, all that is shown about a book is a few short snippets, just like web search results.

There seem to be plenty of books on there where a lot more than a few short snippets are shown. I suppose it's possible that all of the corresponding rightsholders have joined whatever scheme Google offered, but given the stories of some posters here about Google just taking their work and using it without any permission at all, I'm less than willing to take that on trust.

In any case, even a few snippets could easily undermine the value of a book if it happens to be all the highlights.

And you can even opt out of that.

Irrelevant. The law in every first world jurisdiction I know requires that someone making a copy have permission from the copyright holder unless they have a specific exception/exemption, not that the copyright holder opt-out of forfeit their rights.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Those notices either contain an exclusion for fair use or they're illegally representing their position by claiming by implication that fair use is not allowed. I believe the crux of the question is: is what Google is doing "fair use". If it were as black and white as you suggest, I don't think the case would still be going on three years later. In my opinion it's no different to my local bookstore. I can go in there and flip through the pages of a book and read a few to see if it's what I want (if I really wanted to I could sit down with a coffee and read a couple of chapters). There's nothing in that notice from the author to say I'm allowed to read through their book before I buy it, yet there's no baying mob at my local Waterstones demanding they seal the books. Being able to flip through a few pages to get a feel for the book is an essential part of the buying process for me. I'm chalking this up to yet another overreaction by a bunch of old suits at the site of what has always been a common practice but is now being performed on a new technology medium.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[Oligonicella]

"Being able to flip through a few pages to get a feel for the book is an essential part of the buying process for me."

Flipping through books that are meeting the copyright holder's distribution desires, not violating it.

"I'm chalking this up to ..."

Then, you would be wrong.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[khipu]

Web pages are already available for free, to anyone, on-line, with immediate access, from their original sources. That's five factors right there that distinguish the Web search engine case from what Google Books does. ... The law in every first world jurisdiction I know requires that someone making a copy have permission from the copyright holder unless they have a specific exception/exemption, not that the copyright holder opt-out of forfeit their rights.

You're wildly contradicting yourself, saying on the one hand that it doesn't matter because it's free, and on the other hand that you need explicit permission for everything.

Fact is: you don't need explicit permission to make copies under many circumstances: you can make copies under fair use, you can make copies if you already have paid fees through some other mechanism, you can make copies for indexing purposes, etc.

In any case, even a few snippets could easily undermine the value of a book if it happens to be all the highlights.

Tough cookies. It is not the purpose of copyright law to "protect the value of the book" against all possible threats to your revenue.

There seem to be plenty of books on there where a lot more than a few short snippets are shown. I suppose it's possible

Which means that you are groundlessly accusing Google. What's really going on is that you don't like Google and are now looking for shit to throw at them.

Throughout human history, the greatest threat to life and liberty has been not terrorism but the power of the state.

Your signature is ironic, given that you are arguing for limiting liberty through the power of the state.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

You're wildly contradicting yourself, saying on the one hand that it doesn't matter because it's free, and on the other hand that you need explicit permission for everything.

There is no contradiction at all. Being available for free is not the same as being in the public domain. However, such availability weighs on several of factors that determine whether a use is fair in the US (which I assume is the most relevant jurisdiction if we're talking about Google).

Fact is: you don't need explicit permission to make copies under many circumstances: you can make copies under fair use, you can make copies if you already have paid fees through some other mechanism, you can make copies for indexing purposes, etc.

That's just begging the question: the final case that you quietly added on the end there has not been shown to be a fact at all.

It is not the purpose of copyright law to "protect the value of the book" against all possible threats to your revenue.

No, it isn't. However, one of the four factors in determining fair use is, explicitly, right out of the statute books, the effect of the use on the potential market or value of the work.

Which means that you are groundlessly accusing Google.

It's only groundless if the cases I mentioned -- which are demonstrable fact -- all turn out to be justified. Speculation? Sure, and I acknowledged the other possibility. Groundless? Only if you show convincing evidence that what they are doing had the necessary permissions in advance. The burden of proof is on them/you as the people who are performing/defending an act that is by default illegal.

Your signature is ironic, given that you are arguing for limiting liberty through the power of the state.

All laws ultimately limit liberty through the power of the state. My signature is a warning against permitting the state to become too powerful, not a call for anarchy.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[khipu]

Being available for free is not the same as being in the public domain. However, such availability weighs on several of factors that determine whether a use is fair in the US

I.e. you don't need explicit permission for some uses of copyrighted materials. As I was saying...

However, one of the four factors in determining fair use is, explicitly, right out of the statute books, the effect of the use on the potential market or value of the work.

Yes, and for most people, the market value of their books goes up. For a few badly written books, it may go down. And that is why the default should be opt-out, not opt-in.

All laws ultimately limit liberty through the power of the state. My signature is a warning against permitting the state to become too powerful, not a call for anarchy.

And that is exactly why we should not give authors or the government too much control over our culture or intellectual creations. Excessive copyright restrictions are a threat to our economy, our liberty, and our democracy.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Yes, and for most people, the market value of their books goes up.

That is what lawyers sometimes call "assuming facts not in evidence". Of course, you're welcome to cite additional evidence to support your position if you have it, but I've seen this sort of argument made before by people who dislike copyright, and I've yet to see a case where there wasn't obvious selective evidence or confirmation bias at work when they were called on it. If you really do have a good counter-example, I'd be genuinely interested to learn about it.

And that is why the default should be opt-out, not opt-in.

If the process is as beneficial to rightsholders as you claim, what is the problem with making it opt-in? Surely they would be queueing up to register, since it would surely take less than a minute and, by your argument, for most people it would increase their profits. Moreover, if there were a high rate of opt-ins in the early days, followed by a worthwhile increase in profits for those who tried it, that would represent compelling evidence for switching to an opt-out-by-default policy in future, without any of the hypothetical thought experiments or philosophical views we see today.

By the way, for someone so hot on promoting liberty, I can't help noticing how keen you seem to be on taking the decision out of the hands of the people who have done the hard work and favouring the organisation that is profiting off the back of someone else's work. I think this is my fundamental problem with a lot of anti-copyright advocacy: however you dress it up, copyright ultimately exists to incentivise the creation and distribution of valuable works, and historically, favouring middlemen further from the artist over those closest to the artist has rarely achieved that.

Excessive copyright restrictions are a threat to our economy, our liberty, and our democracy.

That is essentially a tautology. The question is whether it would be excessive to prohibit what Google is doing. Indeed, I notice that others in this discussion have already suggested that Google's actions are a prime example of exactly the sort of behaviour that copyright is intended to restrict.

I'll just finish by observing that having one law for multinational corporations with in-house legal teams and millions to spend on lobbying and another law for everyone else is harmful to democracy, too.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[khipu]

Of course, you're welcome to cite additional evidence to support your position

Well, as you yourself observed: most books on Google Books show you more than snippets, which means that most people choose to opt in.

If the process is as beneficial to rightsholders as you claim, what is the problem with making it opt-in?

Making opt-in the default further limits the rights of the public; it has effects far beyond Google. Just because you hate Google's guts doesn't mean that we should screw archives, non-profits, and scholars even more than they are already screwed by the overreaching lobbying activities of the movie and publishing industries.

By the way, for someone so hot on promoting liberty, I can't help noticing how keen you seem to be on taking the decision out of the hands of the people who have done the hard work and favouring the organisation that is profiting off the back of someone else's work.

Liberty doesn't mean that you can force people to pay for whatever crap you produce. Copyright is a utilitarian tradeoff, not a natural law. Since we have a glut of books and movies, we don't need even stricter copyright legislation.

And I am not concerned with Google, I am concerned with the ill effect your kind of knee-jerk law-making has on everybody else.

That is essentially a tautology. The question is whether it would be excessive to prohibit what Google is doing.

Actually, it's not a tautology, it is rhetoric and implies that it would be excessive. Maybe your inability to comprehend simple English is why you have trouble making a living from your "intellectual creations"?

I'll just finish by observing that having one law for multinational corporations with in-house legal teams and millions to spend on lobbying and another law for everyone else is harmful to democracy, too.

Oh, how right you are! And the multinational corporations that are lobbying here are big, bloated, obsolete publishers that are screwing authors and customers alike and have been pushing one copyright extension after another. Those organizations are the real threat. Google showing a bunch of small snippets and giving you an opt-out if you are dumb enough to take it is a threat to nobody.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Well, I think your incivil tone and unnecessary personal attacks have pretty much put an end to any sensible discussion here, so I will simply leave you with this thought: by my count, you have made several outright false statements in that one post, including jumping to some conclusions about me that are waaaay off-base.

For example, I've actively campaigned for copyright reform in my country for a long time, including objecting to all the silly term extensions and such, so my views are in no way knee-jerk reactions and I'm amused that you seem to think I'm on the side of Big Media. Also, I've never published a book, and while technically some of the work I do is protected by copyright, none of the business models I am currently using actually rely on that protection, so I have no axe to grind about this particular case.

In short, I have no vested interest in this issue other than getting a fair result for both the public and those who create and share their work. I just happen not to agree with you about the best way to do that, and that includes not letting Google trample all over the law just because they're Google.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[khipu]

in this issue other than getting a fair result for both the public and those who create and share their work. I just happen not to agree with you about the best way to do that

US copyright is based on utility, not "fairness". Even though I have pointed this out multiple times and pointed you at the Constitution, you still keep droning on about "fairness". And even though the issue is clearly legally unsettled and the court hasn't ruled, you keep talking as if it were a fact that Google is violating the law. Don't expect people to remain civil if you just keep ignoring them and the facts.

so my views are in no way knee-jerk reactions and I'm amused that you seem to think I'm on the side of Big Media

But you are on the side of Big Media--you are parroting their attacks on Google, with the same irrelevant arguments about "fairness" and the same attacks on the public domain.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

US copyright is based on utility, not "fairness".

Says who? That's the first time you've mentioned anything about "utility".

Even though I have pointed this out multiple times and pointed you at the Constitution

Wrong on both counts. Go ahead and search your history of replies to me in this thread.

you still keep droning on about "fairness"

That's because I think a fair result for both sides is the most beneficial to society. Apparently those who wrote the law in the US agree, since reproducing works under copyright is (under most circumstances) illegal by default, and whether Google can avail themselves of the fair use affirmative defence is the key to this whole debate.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[khipu]

Says who? That's the first time you've mentioned anything about "utility".

OK, I that was in another thread. Nevertheless, if you engage in arguments about US legal cases, it is your responsibility to inform yourself about US law.

Apparently those who wrote the law in the US agree

Why do you persist in making things up? US copyright law is based in the US Constitution, which defines it to be utilitarian. There is no "apparently" about it. Notions of "fairness" only enter into European copyright law.

That's because I think a fair result for both sides is the most beneficial to society.

Great! I consider the original US copyright system to be fair: 28 years plus mandatory registration. I consider the current system (life+70 years, no registration) to be highly unfair, because it lets publishers control works they did not create and keep works out of the public domain that should be in the public domain. Hence, in the interest of fairness, let's go back to the original copyright terms and system. It's only fair, right?

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

OK, one more try. Here is what the US Constitution actually says in Article 1, Section 8:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

I will just note in passing that if you're going to make an argument based on the Constitution, there is nothing in there restricting the Right of Authors in their works or making any exceptions at all for anyone else to do anything with the work during the limited Time when the exclusive Right applies.

In other words, while you could make a decent argument against permitting the permanent transfer of copyright to middlemen (which I would agree with) and you could make a decent argument against extending copyright terms such that they are effectively no longer a limited Time (which I would also agree with, as I mentioned before), you have no case whatsoever based on the wording of the Constitution to argue for automatic rights for others in specific contexts.

That means any such rights are down to the specific laws that grant Authors those exclusive Rights as permitted by the Constitution. And on that score, we turn to 17 U.S.C. 107:

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. 106 and 17 U.S.C. 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

I've added emphasis, so you can see exactly where the US statute books say fairness is relevant.

By the way, when you're looking at things in this level of detail, there isn't really any such thing as "European copyright law". There are centralised directives, which are subsequently implemented by individual member states within their own legal frameworks. There may also be local laws independent of centralised Europe, for example the fair dealing provisions in the UK. These laws may be created on their own merits, or they may be required because the state in question is a signatory to major international copyright agreements like the Berne Convention and TRIPS.

I consider the original US copyright system to be fair: 28 years plus mandatory registration. I consider the current system (life+70 years, no registration) to be highly unfair, because it lets publishers control works they did not create and keep works out of the public domain that should be in the public domain.

The irony is that if you were actually reading my posts, you'd realise that I completely agree with you about the silly term length extensions and the problems of letting middlemen grab the rights from the people who really do the work and exploit them in the long term. Mandatory registration is the only thing I disagree with there, because I simply don't think it's practical in the modern world; if say 10% of the bloggers in the world started registering every post, any government-run system would probably collapse pathetically within hours, even before you consider all the professionals who would surely want robust protection worldwide for all

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[khipu]

you have no case whatsoever based on the wording of the Constitution to argue for automatic rights for others in specific contexts.

The US Constitution doesn't grant rights, it takes them away, leaving all remaining rights in place. The fact that the Constitution gives Congress the power to enact copyright laws tells you that by default, everybody has the right to copy everything, but Congress has the power to limit that right temporarily for utilitarian purposes.

So, I don't have "to argue for automatic rights [to copyrighed works] for others" because everybody has the right to copy everything, unless specifically limited by copyright law. And limitations by copyright law need to be justified by utility. If there is some new, money-making way of using a copyrighted work, under US law, by default, it is permitted until Congress enacts legislation to limit it.

This is fundamentally different from Europe. European Constitutions enumerate a limited set of rights that you have instead of enumerating a limited set of rights that you don't have, and European law recognizes "moral rights" in copyrighted works, which the US does not.

I've added emphasis, so you can see exactly where the US statute books say fairness is relevant.

"Fair use" is a technical term meaning a defined "legitimate use". It says "even though we have given authors these special restrictions for utilitarian purposes, it is nevertheless always legitimate for people to copy for the following purposes...". It doesn't refer to "fairness" in the sportsmanship sense or balancing of interests.

I have nothing against them indexing books that are out of copyright. They're playing the legal "might is right" game as they so often do.

Out-of-copyright and orphan works is exactly what this lawsuit is about. Publishers and guilds want to rip off the public, and neither libraries, nor archives, scholars, or other non-profits have been able to reign them in. I'm glad Google is mighty enough to take on these scoundrels, because nobody else has been able to.

It's also about whether one of the largest businesses in the world, with business practices that (by their then-CEO's repeated admission) ignore fundamentals like a right to privacy, can get away with their behaviour by effectively being above the law. Consequently, I have no problem with a court that finds they crossed a line then slapping them down so hard that they bounce.

You're almost literally spewing the anti-Google propaganda of people like Murdoch, Berlusconi, and German state TV (and if you're from somewhere else, there are similar people everywhere), companies and individuals that have monopolized the European media markets and conned Europeans out of huge sums of money. European politicians are doing their bidding because they know they can't get reelected if they act against them. Berlusconi just skipped that step and used his media empire to become the leader of Italy.

These people see their obsolete business models and their control over public opinion threatened and they are fighting back. Someone needs to take them on, and the only one powerful enough is other big companies and the US government, which is why they publish all that anti-US and anti-corporate claptrap. If Google uses its "might" to destroy their businesses, we'll all be better off.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

If there is some new, money-making way of using a copyrighted work, under US law, by default, it is permitted until Congress enacts legislation to limit it.

Sure, and if that way of using the work involves reproduction, then Congress has enacted such legislation and reaffirmed it on several subsequent occasions.

"Fair use" is a technical term meaning a defined "legitimate use". It says "even though we have given authors these special restrictions for utilitarian purposes, it is nevertheless always legitimate for people to copy for the following purposes...". It doesn't refer to "fairness" in the sportsmanship sense or balancing of interests.

That might be your interpretation, but I know of nothing in US law that supports it. I just quoted you the relevant law verbatim, and nothing in there says any of what you just wrote.

Out-of-copyright and orphan works is exactly what this lawsuit is about.

I notice you sneaked in the always controversial "orphan works" there. The trouble with orphan works is that if there really isn't any way to get hold of the rightsholder then probably we do want to release them into the public domain immediately, but organisations with a vested interest in not being restricted by copyright tend to want some inevitably failing token effort at looking someone up to result in the same effective cancellation of the copyright. Right here in this discussion, there is someone posting who says Google used his copyrighted book without making any contact with him.

You're almost literally spewing the anti-Google propaganda

Oh, please. I don't like big, international organisations that try to put themselves above the law. I'm perfectly entitled to that opinion, regardless of whatever politics any other person or organisation might have.

And for the record, that includes Big Media, who should long ago have been punished for rampant price-fixing, anti-competitive practices, etc.

I don't like organisations that effectively buy laws with lobbyists either.

European politicians are doing their bidding because they know they can't get reelected if they act against them. Berlusconi just skipped that step and used his media empire to become the leader of Italy.

How is that working out for him?

Someone needs to take them on, and the only one powerful enough is other big companies and the US government, which is why they publish all that anti-US and anti-corporate claptrap.

I find your implication that the US government is on the side of the people and/or organisations like Google, rather than bought and paid for by Big Media more than any other first world nation, to be highly amusing.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[khipu]

I just quoted you the relevant law verbatim, and nothing in there says any of what you just wrote.

You claimed that that passage showed that "fairness" was a consideration in US copyright law. I pointed out that you misunderstood the passage. The passage says that it is "fair" (legitimate) for the public to do something even with copyrighted books, nothing more. The only basis of giving privileges to authors is utility under US law.

Right here in this discussion, there is someone posting who says Google used his copyrighted book without making any contact with him.

People claim all sort of bizarre things about US copyright law, as you yourself have been doing, so "someone said" is not an argument.

(I would imagine that Google rarely if ever contacts authors of books, since they make most deals with the publishers.)

I find your implication that the US government is on the side of the people and/or organisations like Google, rather than bought and paid for by Big Media more than any other first world nation, to be highly amusing.

Well, you just reaffirm again your political biases against the US and US corporations. In fact, the US government by and large actually represents the will of the people. I know that must be hard for a European to fathom, first because European media provide you a steady diet of anti-American propaganda and selective reporting, and second because European governments represent the will of the European people so poorly.

Re:All of the authors DID notify google.

[khipu]

How is that working out for [Berlusconi]?

He is laughing all the way to the bank, and he still controls the Italian media.

snippets = dozens of pages = not fair use

[decora]

What we have to admit here is that Google is a massively wealthy company, and that authors are, in general, poor as shit.

How anyone can call this 'fair' is bizarre. Authors own their property, just like you own your toothbrush or your socks. Google comes in and makes money off of this property, without asking, in violation of the rule of law and the custom of law.

If it were Fair, google and all its highly payed, perks-out-the-ass employees would be giving a little sumpin sumpin to the Philip K Dicks of the world, and the obscure research book writers who have found their employment in journalism to have been so destroyed as of recent years by consolidation, and the internet.

There are countless scandals and corruption episodes going on right now that we will never know about because there are no journalists being payed to report on them. That is not magic, that is the fault of the internet. Google has decided that it doesnt care, and it is not picking up the slack by giving some tiny sliver of its vast billions away to people who actually create content. Instead, it hires masseuses and black-belt baristas to staff its incredibly opulent cube farms.

The publishers are often horrible, but Google is just another publisher - the funny thing is that it doesnt really pay anyone to write anything, and there is only one of it (i.e. its a monopoly).

Re:snippets = dozens of pages = not fair use

[GauteL]

Ok... analogy time. What if someone decided to read and memorise the entire contents of the Harry Potter series, so that they could provide you with the service of answering any question related to Harry Potter and settle any pub arguments about it.

Would this be a breach of copyright?

Then, what if this turned out too difficult. So the same guy wrote a massive index in his notebook, which he allowed nobody to see, but he referred to it every time someone had a question?

Would this be a breach of copyright?

What Google is doing is pretty much exactly the second thing, just "using computers" and "on the tinterweb".

During my University years, I copied large parts of my text books (which I had bought) into cutdown versions of what I thought important. I never distributed these copies and they are purely for my own use. Did I breach copyright?

Re:snippets = dozens of pages = not fair use

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok... analogy time. What if someone decided to read and memorise the entire contents of the Harry Potter series, so that they could provide you with the service of answering any question related to Harry Potter and settle any pub arguments about it.

Would this be a breach of copyright?

I can't imagine a court counting a copy inside your brain as being a copy under copyright law as that would be a silly thing to do with even sillier consequences. Besides, even if it DID count, surely you'd have an implied licence. If you don't want people to read your book, why sell it to them?

Then, what if this turned out too difficult. So the same guy wrote a massive index in his notebook, which he allowed nobody to see, but he referred to it every time someone had a question?

Would this be a breach of copyright?

No, probably not. He hasn't copied the book.

What Google is doing is pretty much exactly the second thing, just "using computers" and "on the tinterweb".

No, they aren't. They're copying entire books from paper to their computers so that they can index them, and then distributing excerpts to people who perform searches. This is not the same thing as your insane Harry Potter fan not copying the book and not distributing excerpts.

During my University years, I copied large parts of my text books (which I had bought) into cutdown versions of what I thought important. I never distributed these copies and they are purely for my own use. Did I breach copyright?

Probably. Presumably the copyright holder or exclusive licensee could sue you and, were it in the same jurisdiction as me, obtain either damages (probably zero), an account of profits (zero) or an injunction to stop you if that was the only way to stop you harming him (which I doubt he'd get because you're not harming him). Or maybe the whole thing would be thrown out as trivial.

Re:snippets = dozens of pages = not fair use

[sFurbo]

What we have to admit here is that Google is a massively wealthy company, and that authors are, in general, poor as shit.

Yes, and this should influence the ruling. Excellent idea. In stead of hearing witnesses and using a lot of time deciding based on precedent, fairness and law, we should count each sides money, and whoever is poorest will win.

Authors own their property, just like you own your toothbrush or your socks.

No, they don't. They have a time-limited (hah) monopoly on making certain kinds of copies of their work. It is in no way analogues to real property.

There are countless scandals and corruption episodes going on right now that we will never know about because there are no journalists being payed to report on them.

That was always the case. Investigative journalism was never a very big part of journalism, and good investigative journalism was always a minor part of investigative journalism. Sure, journalists loves to portray themselves as the fourth estate holding the other three estates accountable, but that is and always was more the exception than the rule. And how did we get from authors to journalists? Stop defaming the authors by comparing them to journalists.

authors just want to be payed. its a labor issue.

[decora]

unfortunately, big companies do not have any managers saying "i just want our customers to fucking click on a link, and give more money to labor"

Libraries vs. google scans

[Anonymous Coward]

Every book in the library was printed WITH the permission of the copyright owner.

Every book in google's scanned book database was scanned WITHOUT the permission of the copyright owner.

Re:Libraries vs. google scans

[Anonymous Coward]

Every book in the library was printed WITH the permission of the copyright owner.

Yes, but putting the books in libraries was something that the states had to force upon the copyright holders, who were fiercely against it claiming it would lead to loss of sales.

The parent argument was correct.

Re:Libraries vs. google scans

[perryizgr8]

what google does with their copy of any book is upto them, unless the thing they do violates copyright. and it was proved in court that this does not violate copyright.

stop lying

[khipu]

snippets = dozens of pages = not fair use

Stop lying. Google shows "dozens of pages" only for publishers and authors who opt into their partner program.

http://books.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=43729&topic=9259&hl=en

And, if, for some reason, your book slipped through the cracks, you can have it removed.

But what you and the publishers really want is to force Google to promote your books and then pay for the privilege. And you want to make it so cumbersome for small authors and publishers to get onto services like Google that you retain a monopoly. I don't think so.

What we have to admit here is that Google is a massively wealthy company, and that authors are, in general, poor as shit.

The reason authors are "poor as shit" is simple supply and demand: there is a glut of authors and books. The world doesn't owe you a living as an author. If you can't make it as an author under the existing copyright law, which is already very strict, choose a different profession or get a day job to pay the bills.

Authors own their property, just like you own your toothbrush or your socks.

Copyright is a temporary, limited grant by the government. It is nothing like physical property. Read the Constitution.

Google comes in and makes money off of this property, without asking, in violation of the rule of law and the custom of law.

There is nothing in copyright law that generally prohibits others from profiting from your writings; such a notion is contrary to the very idea of copyright laws. Your rights in your copyrighted materials are limited.

There are countless scandals and corruption episodes going on right now that we will never know about because there are no journalists being payed to report on them.

Same thing applies to journalists as to authors: either there is a demand for their services or there is not, either they can make a living at it or they can't. Because of the Internet, it turns out that we need far fewer journalists than we used to, so a lot of them lose their jobs. I don't see a problem.

The publishers are often horrible, but Google is just another publisher - the funny thing is that it doesnt really pay anyone to write anything, and there is only one of it (i.e. its a monopoly).

Google has spent billions on creating free software. That alone more than makes up for any moral quibbles you may have with them.

Re:stop lying

[Oligonicella]

"There is nothing in copyright law that generally prohibits others from profiting from your writings; such a notion is contrary to the very idea of copyright laws. Your rights in your copyrighted materials are limited."

Yeah, limited to controlling the distribution of your work. You know? *You* get to say how it's distributed, not Google.

"Google has spent billions on creating free software. That alone more than makes up for any moral quibbles you may have with them."

Horse - fucking - shit.

What is Google's profit?

[Anonymous Coward]

I really dont understand this. The google-haters are going on about Google profiting from the books. How exactly are they profiting? By Ad dollars? Who puts those ads there? The people who are litigating. What is the point of those ads? More exposure. And what have you got? Much more exposure.

I think the analogy to a library filled with look up assistants is fair. I have found a lot of arcane programming information through Google's books search and hunted down those books just for those pieces. There is no other way I could have got that. And who has benefited in the end? The people suing Google.

And for the argument about Google being an easy target for crackers and thieves? Are you frikkin kiddin me?? Information has always wanted to be free(er). If you wanted your books to be safe, transfer it by oral tradition like it was done in ancient India.

Market Forces

[Demonantis]

I personally only right stuff that I am guaranteed to benefit from. Once I benefit from it, it is hard to argue that I wouldn't have done it in the first place if copyright did not exist. The only authors that have trouble are the ones that have been sold a song about how they can write a book and people will automatically buy it on its merits. Piracy has become the running cliche like lawyers. No one in jail is guilty it is just that their lawyer screwed them.

google books

[Anonymous Coward]

For one of the best books I have ever read via google books actually-

http://www.lulu.com/browse/search.php?fListingClass=0&fSearch=greg+hoey

Not Just Snippets

[Frankie70]

Most of the posts are saying the google just shows search snippets. That's not true.

Some of the books just have a snippet view. But there are a lot of books where you can get many pages of the book.

Here is an example
http://tinyurl.com/727xtle

This is from the book "System Dynamics" by Ogata. Several complete & continuous pages can be seen. There are various books where I have seen anything from 20% to 50% of the book being shown on Google books - after every 4-5 pages - couple of pages are not shown & then again 4-5 pages.

The discussion of whether it helps the author or not is irrelevant.

Education

[Anonymous Coward]

Several people have mentioned Google Books versus the Guilds, but not much about individual authors who are in favor of a different copyright/distribution system. Ursula LeGuin's arguments against the settlement seem to boil down to, "It's mine!" and I didn't find many of the other names on the list of co-signers very impressive. Of course the Steinbeck estate got some media attention, but the man himself is dead.

One of the most radical things about this settlement for small authors, I think, is that it would establish a baseline of profit-- 37% that they got from Google Books, no matter how obscure they are. I knew a guy who broke onto some Amazon top 10 list for a few days, but he got less than a dollar per book, despite selling tens of thousands of copies, so he's going to have to keep his day job. I'm not sure what his agreement with the publisher was for subsequent editions, or if there was a limit to what they could print, but he will never have the clout that Ursula LeGuin does when she talks to publishers.

For the vast majority of minor authors, real success will depend on word of mouth. So I really doubt the motives of all these "big name" authors who have come out against the settlement. For the small guys, Google Books might actually help them get fairer contracts, and have better control of their copyrights.

And for god's sake, the blind people! This is really looking like giant corporations versus the handicapped. Who's going to ride into town and put this situation right?

From a Wired article:

But the court said that went too far, because the settlement was giving away the “property rights” of people without their consent, and the problem of orphan works was better left to legislators.

Judge Chin’s view isn’t novel: There’s a fairly broad consensus that the problem of orphan works needs to be addressed by Congress.

Oh shit.

They bought a book to scan.

[Anonymous Coward]

So not copyright violation.

There is also the problem specifically here (because the copyright holder can request a book not be made available), where abandoned works with no assigned owner are being scanned.

Since there's nobody to ask permission, what is the purpose of killing these books and refusing them to be made available on Google Books?

There are places kinkos would have been legal.

[Anonymous Coward]

During my bachelor's in the US, I spent thousands of dolars on books every semester. It was a real burden, especially since I had no parental support. In Belgium, where I went for my Master's, it is perfectly normal for a copy shop to do what you are describing. It cost me less than 100 Euros a semester for books, meaning I had to work less and could spend more time studying. The book authors did not seem to suffer, either.

Google is stealing my monies

[amoeba1911]

by indexing my website and listing it in their search engine!

Seriously, people are working tooth and nail trying to get their content indexed on the world's biggest search engines so they can enjoy the extra visitors, but these idiot ass-backward authors can't wrap around their head that getting indexed is a good thing.

Google is fighting an uphill battle to make the authors richer in the long run? How idiotic. Someone slap some sense into these authors please.

Re:authors just want to be payed. its a labor issu

[adoarns]

*Nods*. Right. My comment ought not to be construed as a statement along the lines of, "Screw the authors! Gimme!" It's just a goddamn shame that this hasn't been pulled off.

Copyrights should be like trademarks

[Anonymous Coward]

The copyright was originally established to be a temporary protection for works so that the creator could derive income while creating something new. It was not meant to be a perpetual cash cow for mega corporations. I believe that it should go back the the original temporary intent. I also believe that a copyright should be used like a trademark, lapsing when the item is no longer being generally available to the public, like a book or DVD is out of print, or software is not for sale somewhere, etc.

It's about publishers not authors

[Tristonian]

I see a lot of comments regarding authors, but this is mostly about publishers and their legal rights. They want to make money on their terms exclusively, it's really nothing new. I actually worked as a contractor on the book search project I was out at the actual library, Stanford has about NINE of them. We always worked against the threat of the project ending or changing prematurely.