After 7 Years In Court, Google Settles With Publishers On Book Scanning

redletterdave writes "After seven long years of litigation, Google Inc. and the Association of American Publishers have reached an agreement to settle over the search giant's book-scanning project, which will allow publishers to choose whether or not they want their books, journals and publications digitized by Google and accessed via its Google Library Project. The agreement, according to the two companies, acknowledges the rights and interests of copyright holders, so U.S. publishers can choose to remove their books and journals digitized by Google for its Library Project, or choose to keep their publications available. For those that keep their works online with Google, those publishers will be able to keep a digital copy for their own use and sell their publications via the Google Play marketplace." Also reported by Reuters, as carried by the Chicago Tribune, and the BBC.

Comments

Wow! What a victory!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't that Google's approach to start with? So the AAP was just forcing Google to do something they were already doing...?

Re:Wow! What a victory!

[icebike]

Pretty much, yes.

Although from the beginning Google would scan books from the affected publishers, it would only put fair use amounts (often only a couple pages) on the web. Essentially what you could photocopy in a public library.

Now they can put up to 20% online, far more than most libraries would photocopy for you, and any publisher can ask the book to be pulled, which I predict none will do.

Re:Wow! What a victory!

[helix2301]

Feels like Google been fighting this forever I remember when Google first started scanning books

Intensely idiotic

[MickyTheIdiot]

Like every copyright case initiated by one of the big names, like the *AAs or big corporate publishing houses, this case is INTENSELY idiotic.

Google got the good end of this. Basically the corporate assholes can shoot themselves in the foot and pull their material... and lose money in the long run. Google can provide a free publicity service or you can take your ball and go home.

What a difficult choice....

Re:Intensely idiotic

[ThatsMyNick]

I though the publishers are on the right here. What gives google the right to scan and put up copyrighted work on their website, without the permissions of the copyright holder?

Re:Intensely idiotic

[preaction]

I'm more concerned about orphaned works and the length of copyright causing a work to be completely destroyed before it can be preserved. I understand the desire to keep copyright, and I understand the idea that Google is infringing by creating these digital copies and then providing excerpts for users, but the wealth of knowledge that gets lost because of copyrights that last essentially forever is a real problem that needs a real solution.

Perhaps it's stupid to entrust that burden to a corporation, and it should be the job of a public or non-profit institution, but this knowledge must be preserved.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

I though the publishers are on the right here. What gives google the right to scan and put up copyrighted work on their website, without the permissions of the copyright holder?

I believe that it clearly states that the copyright holder has the right to remove the book from Google at any time. However, as MickyTheIdiot stated... doing so would be stupid.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Perhaps it's stupid to entrust that burden to a corporation, and it should be the job of a public or non-profit institution, but this knowledge must be preserved.

If only the Library of Congress in the US, national library of China, library of Russian academy of science, National library and Archives Canada, and the German National Library existed.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Lord Bitman]

Is this a trick question? How is "fair use" not applicable?
This is absolutely no different from the "scanning" and "putting up" that google does of every other part of the internet. Why should the fact that it started out in a grossly inefficient medium be any distinction whatsoever?

Re:Intensely idiotic

[geekoid]

Cultures? society? Human instinct to share?

Copyright is an anathema to human behavior. One that would be worth having it copyright was returned to a sane amount of time.
Copyright holders want to lock up culture, and that's going to far.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Bill_the_Engineer]

The copyright holder should have the ability to "opt-in" and not have to "opt-out". Why should corporations assume they can do anything they want until told otherwise?

Re:Intensely idiotic

[danomac]

Well, look at this this way. When the publishers hoard their material and choose to not publish, it gets lost forever. At least if it's digitized, it'll survive.

Music is a good example of this. There's a lot of music 20+ years old that's no longer in print, and the labels are no longer around. If someone that had a copy didn't digitize it, it's lost forever.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[TheSwift]

Sorry buddy, "because FUCK the copyright holders!" is not an argument. You may be right in saying that we should have the right to do what we want with what we've purchased, but play the Devil's advocate for a moment...

The year is 2016: Every book that has ever been printed is now considered "public domain" since copyright laws have been abolished and you can find any literature you want just by googling the title and author. Sound great? Well it also turns out that books have annually been published 80% less since the copyright laws were struck down. Why is that, do you think? Perhaps it's because there's no longer any motivation for authors to publish their books since they aren't paid any money once they are published. They are made immediately available for the public's viewing. All the author gets is good feeling that people are reading their work. Reward enough? 80% of authors would say no.

Obviously it's a hypothetical argument, but I can say that as an aspiring novelist, my motivation to finish my book would be lessened if I knew that even if my work went viral, I would have nothing to show for it except for a few book readings at coffee shops.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[icebike]

I'm more concerned about orphaned works and the length of copyright causing a work to be completely destroyed before it can be preserved

Actually, (according to the first link) the Orphaned Works issue is still pending, with the Author's Guild still fighting on the behalf of dead or unknown authors and asserting that they, (the author's guild) have standing to represent these dead or unknown authors, and force Google to remove their works.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[s0nicfreak]

What gives copyright holders the right to hoard knowledge? If I borrow a book from the library and read it to my children, when they themselves did not borrow the book, is that not doing the same thing Google is doing?

Re:Intensely idiotic

[s0nicfreak]

If only there weren't many books that all of those refuse to archive.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

Because... FUCK the copyright holders! Nobody has any right to tell me (or Google) what I can or cannot do with my (or their) copies. It's time to put the hammer down on anyone who thinks they do. End of story.

In buying the book, you agree to the terms on the copyright page--namely, that you aren't allowed to distribute the book without express permission of the copyright holder. I'm not sure where the logic that, just because you bought a single copy, you are now allowed to go and sell multiple copies on a mass scale, comes from.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Is this a trick question? How is "fair use" not applicable?

Depends on how much of the book is being digitally published without the express consent of the copyright holder. A portion of the cover art, the table of contents, and very small number of sample paragraphs seem like a reasonable amount for "fair use". Entire chapters or a large portion of most chapters of a book seems like an unreasonable amount for "fair use".

This is absolutely no different from the "scanning" and "putting up" that google does of every other part of the internet.

Actually the websites that are being scanned are freely available on the internet and Google only provides enough of the website to give the user information on wether or not to visit that website. Also the website can attempt to opt-out preemptively by placing a file in their URL space that informs the web crawler of the author not wanting any of the pages scanned.

Why should the fact that it started out in a grossly inefficient medium be any distinction whatsoever?

You are correct. The copyright holder should have his rights respected regardless of the medium being used.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't opt-in if you are dead, in a coma, clinically insane, etc.

Why should the public, who has granted a limited right to control copying, be denied use of your work after that right has expired because you didn't bother to leave us machine-readable version?

Re:Intensely idiotic

[cheekyjohnson]

Probably property rights that have to do with real property and not just artificial monopolies given to people because they can't find a good business model. I don't own this game I bought? Perhaps not legally, but I feel that I definitely own it.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[cheekyjohnson]

What gives copyright holders the right to hoard knowledge?

Draconian laws and bribery.

If I borrow a book from the library and read it to my children, when they themselves did not borrow the book, is that not doing the same thing Google is doing?

It's on an entirely different scale.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[icebike]

I though the publishers are on the right here. What gives google the right to scan and put up copyrighted work on their website, without the permissions of the copyright holder?

You have to sort of pay attention to what was really happening all along....

Previously, you could only get a fair use sample of a book, a few pages at best, in response to a search. You couldn't get the whole book. You got less than what a public library would allow you to photocopy in house.

At no time was google providing entire books still in copyright from known publishers and authors.

Now you get up to 20% on line. (The publishers finally figured out that if you read 20%, you are more likely to buy the book to get the rest).

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Cinder6]

Google "scans" and "puts up" pages that are publicly viewable. They don't put up pages that are behind a pay wall (unless, of course, the web server is poorly configured, or the dev makes it possible for Googlebot to view the pages--such as experts-exchange). Scanning non-free books and making them searchable is akin to putting up pages behind a paywall when they haven't actually been given permission to do so.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[spire3661]

It sure as fuck is an argument. Copyright is a SOCIAL BARGAIN. We, The People have every right to tell IP holders to shove it up their ass, if we so desire. And I assure you that people will continue to make great art long after copyright bites the dust. To think otherwise completely ignores human nature.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Todd Knarr]

Well, for one thing Google isn't putting the works up on their website. They're making a copy of the work to store in their database to be searched, but what appears on the search results page is an excerpt from the book (the same sort you see in Google's search results for web pages) and a link to where the book's available (eg. Amazon). So my question is, why should Google need permission from the copyright holder to index things for search? I classify the objections here the same way I classify objections to freely watching DVDs I've purchased copies of because technically watching it involves making an additional copy into the player's memory.

And as far as I can tell, in the cases where Google's making the work itself available it's in cases where the work isn't in print (ie. you can't buy it anywhere else) and the copyright holder can't be contacted or isn't known (ie. you can't contact them to get permission). In those cases I can't find anything wrong with Google's actions, the publisher obviously doesn't care about profiting from the work or it wouldn't be out of print and the copyright holder isn't profiting because the work isn't being sold and nobody has any way of getting the money to them if it were.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Ost99]

The publishers rights are not unlimited.
Putting a few pages online could / should be considered within fair use.

Not having someone big do something like this would result in a lot of abandoned works being lost. This is a much more serious problem for society than whatever damage putting a few pages online would do to the publishers.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what you're saying is that we return to the era prior to copyright (say, before the 1700's just to have a nice, rounded number), all of the authors will no longer have any motivation to publish just like before that time? No one will bother publishing works like Romeo & Juliet (or any of Shakespeare's books, for that matter), Beowolf (before copy right as a concept even existed) or any other works because of lack of copyright protection?

Re:Intensely idiotic

[GoogleShill]

Absolutely! I'm going to go download the Linux kernel, make my own changes to it and distribute it without providing the source code! Screw Linus and his stupid copyright!

Re:Intensely idiotic

[tilante]

Actually, no - I don't agree to anything. Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, publishers tried exactly what you're talking about - they put a notice in the front of their books stating that you were only licensed this copy of the book, not sold it, and that you were not allowed to resell it. (In some cases, simply that you were not allowed to sell it below a certain price). The Supreme Court held this to be illegal, leading to what's called "The Doctrine of First Sale".

The reason that you're not allowed to copy a book has nothing to do with agreeing with terms - it's because copyright law makes it illegal. It doesn't matter whether the book has a notice saying that you can't copy it, simply has a bare copyright notice, or has no copyright notice at all - it's equally illegal either way.

Now, from a technical point of view, Google is allowing the making copies of copyright material. So that's copyright infringement, right? Well, maybe and maybe not. There are fair use exemptions, and there are precedents in things like libraries having photocopiers so that people can copy portions of books. If Google is making a good effort to set up things in such a way that people can't just copy whole books and make off with them, then there's a good chance that a court might hold that what they're doing is no more illegal than, say, the New York Public Library having lots of book and having photocopiers that people can take them to.

That's what the publishers are afraid of, and that was Google's leverage to negotiate with them.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[celle]

"Reward enough? 80% of authors would say no. "

    Well, that gets rid of 100% of the fluff and crap currently written.

    "All the author gets is good feeling that people are reading their work."

    How about because you want to write it!! The good feeling comes next. If you're only doing it for the money then you're doing it for the wrong reason.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[tilante]

If the publishers were sure that what Google was doing wouldn't come under fair use, they could have taken Google to court. They chose not to, which means that they aren't sure that it wouldn't be considered fair use by a court.

To give the physical analogy that Google would undoubtedly use, it's common practice for libraries to buy books and allow anyone to browse them in order to determine whether the book is one they're interested in. It's also common practice for libraries to have photocopiers available at a nominal charge, so that people can make copies of portions of the available books. Both of these things are perfectly legal under US copyright law. Indeed, Section 108 of the Copyright Act states that public libraries and public archives may allow patrons to freely copy materials, and cannot be held liable for such copying so long as they display a specific notice on each piece of copying equipment. The end user can be held liable, but the library or archive cannot.

Thus, there's ample precedent that what Google is allowing through their online archive is, in fact, perfectly legal. This is why the publishers chose to settle rather than go to court - they were afraid that a court might allow Google even greater leeway.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[rraylion]

And this is fundamentally different from Apple's OS -- FreeBSD + changes

Re:Intensely idiotic

[HornWumpus]

Aside from the fact that FreeBSD, being released under BSD, is actually free software?

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well it also turns out that books have annually been published 80% less since the copyright laws were struck down. Why is that, do you think?"

As before, that 80% of everything is crap and nothing of any worth was lost?

Why should we pay for the great grandchildren of somebody who wrote 50 Vampire/Werewolf books per year half a century ago? To protect our culture?

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

All of those authors are dead and therefore not in a position to profit off their work. Try coming up with an example of a living author who is still willing to put in the hard work of writing books after he/she stands to have his/her income stream gutted.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're only doing it for the money then you're doing it for the wrong reason.

Yeah, but if the money isn't there, then a lot fewer books get written because people still have to put food on the table. If there's zero money to be made in writing, then it will naturally fall below all of the other priorities that involve making money and paying bills.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[sexconker]

I though the publishers are on the right here. What gives google the right to scan and put up copyrighted work on their website, without the permissions of the copyright holder?

Absolutely nothing. If any individual had done the same thing, or even just scanned books to index them for personal use, they'd be a rotting corpse by now.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[sexconker]

It sure as fuck is an argument. Copyright is a SOCIAL BARGAIN. We, The People have every right to tell IP holders to shove it up their ass, if we so desire. And I assure you that people will continue to make great art long after copyright bites the dust. To think otherwise completely ignores human nature.

"Social bargain" and "social contract" are phrases used by people who have no logical or legal basis for an argument, and want things their way just because.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[alexgieg]

What gives google the right to scan and put up copyrighted work on their website, without the permissions of the copyright holder?

The common good.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Jeremy Erwin]

The library of Congress specializes in certain things.In many areas, they're no better than a college library

Instructional Support level: A collection that in a university is adequate to support undergraduate and most graduate instruction, or sustained independent study; that is, adequate to maintain knowledge of a subject required for limited or generalized purposes, of less than research intensity

In some areas, they are truly awesome:

Comprehensive Level: A collection which, so far as is reasonably possible, includes all significant works of recorded knowledge (publications, manuscripts, and other forms), in all applicable languages, for a necessarily defined and limited field. This level of collecting intensity is one that maintains a " special collection." The aim, if not achievement, is exhaustiveness.

Their areas of interests are defined here

Re:Intensely idiotic

[sexconker]

I though the publishers are on the right here. What gives google the right to scan and put up copyrighted work on their website, without the permissions of the copyright holder?

You have to sort of pay attention to what was really happening all along....

Previously, you could only get a fair use sample of a book, a few pages at best, in response to a search. You couldn't get the whole book. You got less than what a public library would allow you to photocopy in house.

At no time was google providing entire books still in copyright from known publishers and authors.

Now you get up to 20% on line. (The publishers finally figured out that if you read 20%, you are more likely to buy the book to get the rest).

It doesn't matter is google was making them available online in whole, in part, or not at all.
They violated copyright when they copied them in the first place. And they copied books they didn't even own! They waltzed into public librarians, took over a room, some tables, and a library employee for a couple of weeks, and photographed every book they could find. "It's ok, we're allowed to do this because we're Google!"

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

I classify the objections here the same way I classify objections to freely watching DVDs I've purchased copies of because technically watching it involves making an additional copy into the player's memory.

The difference is that the copy in your DVD player's memory isn't freely accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.

BTW, if the work is out of print, the copyright typically devolves back to the author. You have to contact them (or their estate) for permission, not the original publisher. That's what so many people are getting wrong in this discussion. Publishers don't hold copyrights. Authors hold copyrights. Publishers are just given exclusive right to publish a copyrighted work in exchange for a large cut of the profit. So it's not just the publishers who lose money when copyrights are infringed; authors get shafted, arguably more than the publishers. If publishers lose money off one book because of copyright infringement, they can always find more authors. But the author who got infringed may have no other recourse than to write another book and hope it sells well and doesn't get infringed like the first one. If infringement hurts authors persistently and financially enough, pretty soon there will be far fewer books getting written.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[TheSwift]

Just a thought... what if your boss reduced your pay by 50% and told you that "if you're only doing it for money, then you're doing it for the wrong reason"?

Of course the only reason I write is because I enjoy it. And submitting any of my work for publishing would have reward in and of itself, but to do so would require that I devote an enormous amount of time that I could otherwise spend earning money and providing for my family, which, right now, I consider the more important task.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[morgauxo]

When they are only publishing a few pages of a large book/document... Fair Use gives them the right.

It's not like they were putting whole books online or anything like that. It was just a little bit, usually the table of contents plus a few pages. All that ever would have done is make people aware of the book who might then want to buy it!

The publishers, who ultimately end up benefiting from this exposure made a big fuss about it. How is that not 'Intensely Idiotic'?

Re:Intensely idiotic

[MrHanky]

Shakespeare didn't publish Romeo and Juliet. Apart from poor bootleg versions, it was only published after his death. Shakespeare wrote for the stage, not for publication.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[morgauxo]

But that isn't what Google did. They published short excerpts to give the public an idea of what books are out there thus encouraging them to go get a copy through other means, including by BUYING it.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[TheSwift]

I assume you're referring to human's nature to create?

What about human nature to be selfish? Hell, what about the human nature to survive by having a profession that is actually lucrative? It's easy for us, the consumers, to demand that all creators do their work for free because we only look at the exorbitantly wealthy publishers who profit from them. Do I like copyright laws? No, I don't, but to jump blindly to the other extreme is just naive. Just my two cents.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[morgauxo]

Because publishing short excerpts is FAIR USE. They shouldn't legally even have to have an opt out. That was just them being nice before a judge ordered it. Also... wasn't this project originally supposed to be for books where the authors are dead, missing, etc... and the current copyright holders unknown so they were 'saving' works that would otherwise be lost to time? I'm not sure when it became about just digitizing every book they could get their hands on but that didn't change the fact that they were operating under Fair Use.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[alexgieg]

Obviously it's a hypothetical argument, but I can say that as an aspiring novelist, my motivation to finish my book would be lessened if I knew that even if my work went viral, I would have nothing to show for it except for a few book readings at coffee shops.

I have free, easy, unDRMed access to every single book, music, movie and TV show made in the last few years via torrent, Usenet and other means. Ask me how many of those I've read, listened or watched have been not-paid for. Answer: only those I couldn't purchase because they were locked behind idiotic geographical and similar restrictions, luckily fewer and fewer as time passes.

Your argument is simply false. In regards to a piece of content there are always three types of people: a) those who will always purchase it, b) those who will only purchase it if they don't find a way to get it for free and c) those who will never purchase it even if it's free (and who doesn't matter for this discussion). Catastrophists like you think 'a' is almost 0% while 'b' is almost 100%, and that's simply absurd. Sure, if you lose 'b' your revenue will lessen, but if anything, the last years have shown that 'a' is way, way bigger than your nightmares would like you to believe. Want a suggestion? Ignore 'b'. They aren't worth your time. Concentrate on 'a' and you'll have plenty of enjoyment in your work.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[icebike]

It doesn't matter is google was making them available online in whole, in part, or not at all.
They violated copyright when they copied them in the first place. And they copied books they didn't even own! They waltzed into public librarians, took over a room, some tables, and a library employee for a couple of weeks, and photographed every book they could find. "It's ok, we're allowed to do this because we're Google!"

No they didn't.

Copyright allows you to copy your own copy of a book, AND It allows you to give Fair Use Excerpts to your friends for free.

In most cases for current production books, they just bought them off the shelf.

They didn't waltz in to libraries, they asked, and they paid big grant money, and had the consent of the librarians who were all
on board with the project.

Don't confuse the ancient out of print book effort with the scanning of current books in your haste to post the hate.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[alexgieg]

Absolutely! I'm going to go download the Linux kernel, make my own changes to it and distribute it without providing the source code! Screw Linus and his stupid copyright!

Sure, provided I can also use your binary any way I want, including decompiling your changes and reusing them in whatever project of mine.

GPL is a clever workaround to the lack of the above right. Given that without copyright there's no advantage for a company to keep things binary-blobbed, no one would feel something missing due to lack of something like the GPL.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[spire3661]

In contrast to those that buy law to get what they want... Social Bargain is the apt term to call the exchange of limited time and scope monopolies for future culture enrichment. Copyright is supposed to be a balance of allowing creator enrichment while enriching society in the long run. We are now asking where is the balance to be struck in the age of trivial information exchange. The problem IP has is it flies directly against Liberty and so we must use great caution when setting its limits. Right now caution is abandoned and we are allowing the IP holders to encroach Liberty too far.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[CCarrot]

Sorry buddy, "because FUCK the copyright holders!" is not an argument. You may be right in saying that we should have the right to do what we want with what we've purchased, but play the Devil's advocate for a moment...

The year is 2016: Every book that has ever been printed is now considered "public domain" since copyright laws have been abolished and you can find any literature you want just by googling the title and author. Sound great? Well it also turns out that books have annually been published 80% less since the copyright laws were struck down. Why is that, do you think? Perhaps it's because there's no longer any motivation for authors to publish their books since they aren't paid any money once they are published. They are made immediately available for the public's viewing. All the author gets is good feeling that people are reading their work. Reward enough? 80% of authors would say no.

Obviously it's a hypothetical argument, but I can say that as an aspiring novelist, my motivation to finish my book would be lessened if I knew that even if my work went viral, I would have nothing to show for it except for a few book readings at coffee shops.

I'd like to add one little wrinkle to your oh-so-pessimistic future.

Authors across the globe join together in a Kickstarter-esque crowd sourcing micropayment service, so if people read their latest book, love it and want to see another, they contribute some $ to the writers 'next book bucket' to support it. That way, the writer knows ahead of time if there is sufficient interest in his/her writing to justify creating a new work. Doners would indicate at the time of contribution whether they prefer to receive the new book in e-format or dead-tree format (shipping to be paid once the book is ready to ship). And, to keep the fraudsters out of it, if the author doesn't produce a new work within a certain timeframe (barring delays from family emergencies, illness, etc.), their bucket gets dumped into a general administration fund for the site, or refunded back to the doners, or donated to charity, etc. etc.

Personally, I would love to be able to support my favourite authors directly, without propping up the stagnant publishing industry (other than TOR and Baen, those guys rock! :) Even better if we could directly support expansion of specific series / characters / universes. I have way too many "really wish they'd written a sequel to that" books on my shelves...

And hey, would this model work for music too? I wonder...

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Rogue Haggis Landing]

So, what you're saying is that we return to the era prior to copyright (say, before the 1700's just to have a nice, rounded number), all of the authors will no longer have any motivation to publish just like before that time? No one will bother publishing works like Romeo & Juliet (or any of Shakespeare's books, for that matter), Beowolf (before copy right as a concept even existed) or any other works because of lack of copyright protection?

Well, there was great literature before copyright protection, but there was vastly more after it. Some of this is due to technology, demographics, economics, and so forth. But some of it isn't. The first copyright provision passed in 1710. The explosion of the novel, which is entirely a printed form, came after that date. Daniel Defoe published Robinson Crusoe in 1719, and Defoe was not only a crusader for copyright protections but also possibly the first person in England to be able to make a living by writing prose. Copyright made the professional writer possible.

Romeo & Juliet is a good example, actually. 16th and 17th century plays were written for the stage and printed as an afterthought, often in pirated (if we can use that term) editions. As a result we've lost a pretty large percentage of Elizabethan and Jacobean plays, because why print them if someone can pirate them and kill your profits? Or, even worse, what if the rival theater company across the street puts on your play without having to pay you a shilling for it? We know of at least two Shakespearean plays (Cardenio and Love's Labour's Won) that are lost because they were never printed. If Shakespeare had had copyright protection, would it have been worth his time to publish them?

I think that the way copyright protection has been so abused by US corporate interests can sometimes blind us to the value of it. Our current system of unending copyright is very clearly bad, but a reasonable form of copyright is very clearly good. It frees writers from the requirements of patronage, it increases cultural output, and it provides a monetary incentive for making that production public.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever tried actually accessing a bopk held in one of those "archives"?

Hint: it's not possible for us "normals". But somehow undergraduates are given free reign of the place. Apparently they are the only group permitted to learn.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

If only a fee for registering copyright existed, which would ensure that your material could be archived and be read in the future.

Idiot.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

I have had 3 books published, one of which was a 'vanity' project. The first two as per my contract are the concern of the publishing House.

The vanity project is different, I rejected a deal for wider publication, There are only four official copies as it was intended as a gift.if Google somehow manage to scan a copy, then on a personal level I will feel betrayed.

On a social contract level so is property ownership - I guess you wont mind if I come and take your car?

Re:Intensely idiotic

[cpt kangarooski]

Of course that didn't stop other people from publishing it. (And anyway, it's not like Shakespeare was a particularly original guy -- He merely wrote a new adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, a story which was already around)

My favorite is the bad version of Hamlet with the hilariously dictated soliloquy. (You can find it in Wikipedia)

Plus, for copyright purposes, we may as well consider performances or displays of fixed works to be publication. Ideally, yes, copies would be sold or given to the public. But if they're basically publicly available in performance or display form (eg aired on tv) then it may as well count.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[cpt kangarooski]

I agree that copyright is basically a good idea, very badly implemented. But I would say that it doesn't eliminate patronage, in that 1) you can still have patrons; and 2) even where mass market published copies and royalties are the basis for an author's livelihood, it really just shifts the patronage to the reading public. If a patron doesn't like a book, the author may lose his job. If the world doesn't like a book, the author is in just the same pickle. Copyright enables a kind of distributed, passive patronage. Kickstarter and similar things are interesting in that they enable distributed semi-active patronage. All we need to round out the set is a Kickstarter where the works are created according to the stated preferences of the audience, much like storytellers of old. (IIRC The Princess Bride reportedly began when the author asked his daughters what bedtime story they wanted him to tell; one said she wanted to hear about a princess, the other said she wanted to hear about a bride.)

Re:Intensely idiotic

[cpt kangarooski]

Cory Doctrow famously has all of his books in Creative Commons. You can download them for free legally if you don't want to pay. He does alright.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Todd Knarr]

The difference is that the copy in your DVD player's memory isn't freely accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.

The copy of the book isn't either. If what's presented is copyright infringement, then every single library card catalog, every single snippet in a review, every single cover image would be copyright infringement. And canonically they're not.

And no, rights don't typically revert to the author just because the book's out-of-print. I've seen several authors having major fights with their publishers because the books are out-of-print with that publisher, the publisher has no intention of reprinting them, and the publisher won't give the rights back to the author so they can have the book reprinted elsewhere or distribute it themselves. The rights don't revert back until the contract ends or conditions in the contract allowing for reversion are met. This is actually a big problem for authors, a lot of their books sell well enough to be profitable but not well enough to make it worthwhile for the publisher to spend printing capacity on them instead of the latest new title and so the author ends up being completely unable to profit from their own work without a protracted legal fight.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

Because... F*** the copyright holders! ...

From one AC to another, I'm calling you out, choose your weapons and venue!!

I'm an author and copyright holder. After about 10 years of work to produce several engineering text books, I want to continue to receive royalties from my publisher. I don't want to see our books scanned by jerks and posted for free, thank-you-very-much. Our publisher charges a reasonable amount for the books (all less than $100) and we have not done any "updated editions" to force anyone to stop using an older copy. We also requested a good binding, and the books don't fall apart. Students that don't want to keep a book can usually sell it for ~75% of the new price.

Just sent a take down notice to ScribeD (again) today to get rid of another damn copy, aka, whack-a-mole.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[cpt kangarooski]

And then there is their hard on for microfilm.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Fold

In ancient times all people who came into the city of Alexandria were searched for books. Any books that were brought into the city which were of interest were copied in order to add to the collection of the great and famous Library of Alexandria, the biggest and best archive in the classical world.

But only a few works of antiquity which would've been found there have survived to the present day. Most were lost to decay, fire, deliberate destruction, etc. Some books survive only as notes written by a student. Some we only know the titles of. Many, not even that.

Archives are good, but what ultimately preserves knowledge is copying and distribution. The works that survived were works with lots of copies around the world, frequently being recopied and further disseminated. We'll soon have the ability to all carry around a full copy of the entire Library of Congress in drives we can fit in our pockets or on a keychain. It would be better if we used them productively, rather than suffering the embarrassment of copyrights used in such a way as to impede the use, dissemination, and preservation of knowledge -- and for nothing more than money.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[toastking]

I don't think google makes any advertising money off the scanned books, and they are also within fair use laws. I think what Google did was legal but angered publishers because they thought they were missing out on royalty money.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[LordLimecat]

Copyright is a SOCIAL BARGAIN

No, its a legal one, enshrined in US law.

We, The People have every right to tell IP holders to shove it up their ass, if we so desire.

Not when our founding "social contract" establishes the protection of IP, we dont. Once things are in law, generally that isnt an option-- laws arent there as a suggestion.

That this got modded insightful is a little depressing; are driving laws also a social bargain that you're free to ignore if you so desire? Which laws are the ones you can ignore?

Re:Intensely idiotic

[LordLimecat]

In contrast to those that buy law to get what they want

This is so ignorant its not even funny. Copyright has been recognized by the US since its founding (its in the constitution, article 2 I believe).

Right now caution is abandoned and we are allowing the IP holders to encroach Liberty too far.

Then reform the system, dont throw it away entirely. What is commonly encouraged here is ripping out a somewhat flawed system and replacing it with a kind of free-for-all that guarentees absolutely no rights for the content creators. Its ridiculous in the extreme.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Pepebuho]

In contrast to those that buy law to get what they want

This is so ignorant its not even funny. Copyright has been recognized by the US since its founding (its in the constitution, article 2 I believe).

If I recall correctly, US did not recognize English copyrights until late in the 20th centurh (ask Mark Twian and Oscar Wilde about it, they complained a lot about it)

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

We know of at least two Shakespearean plays (Cardenio and Love's Labour's Won) that are lost because they were never printed.

Actually, /Love's Labor Won/ was destroyed by Shakespeare - at the urging of the Doctor - to prevent the Carrionites conquering the world. I saw a documentary about it a few years back.

I don't know about /Cardenio/ but I think I heard that two slackers from San Dimas were in the audience...

Re:Intensely idiotic

[hairyfeet]

What I want to know is why the hell doesn't this apply to ALL works where the authors are missing/dead/unknown is beyond me. How many games from the 70s through mid 90s are in this kind of limbo where nobody knows who owns what anymore? And what about all the indie labels that have died out in the past 30 years?

We are allowing too damned much of our history to end up in these "legal limbos" where nobody can do a damned thing with it and that is just wrong. All content that an author can't be easily found should be allowed to be treated as Public Domain unless/until someone who can actually show ownership shows up, otherwise all this great stuff is gonna end up lost.

But of course i've supported a "use it or lose it" clause for patents and copyrights for years, where if you don't offer it at a reasonable price somewhere easily accessible it should revert to PD, just so we don't end up with a ton of work in limbo where some corp doesn't want to do anything with it but doesn't want anyone to have it either. For an example look at something like the cult game Wild Arms, where the developer tried to buy the rights back several times only to have the publisher refuse to sell yet refuse to do anything more with the IP either. in cases where they aren't gonna use it they should lose it, simple as that. At the very least force them to renew the copyright at set intervals with a higher fee for each renewal, that way they'd have incentive to decide whether to actually use the property or give it to the Public. As it is now they can sit on stuff for decades and not do a damned thing with it so by the time anything DOES end up PD frankly there aren't any copies left worth having, its just wrong no matter how you slice it.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

...The rights don't revert back until the contract ends or conditions in the contract allowing for reversion are met. This is actually a big problem for authors, ...

Reference for this please? I've heard of a few cases, but don't think it's widespread.

Our publisher isn't any kind of saint, but the sample contract they gave us included a sunset clause. It was something along the lines of, "If Publisher allows the Work to go out of print for six months, the Author may end this Contract" (and then either find another publisher or self publish). There were lots of other slippery clauses in the the sample contract and, since we have some business experience, we were able to negotiate many of them to our advantage as authors.

We didn't get them all--prospective authors should think about translation rights and co-publishing rights (two areas where we feel screwed by our publisher).

Re:Intensely idiotic

[cpt kangarooski]

1) To the best of my knowledge, the results that Google intended to display consisted of a few lines from any particular book. They had to have an entire copy scanned in because the lines that matched one search would of course be different from the lines that match another. But the users wouldn't see the whole thing in one go. Also, fair use can encompass the entirety of a work. Whether a use is fair will depend on the circumstances involved; there are no bright line rules in fair use.

2) It's irrelevant that web pages are already on the Internet. Scanning in books and providing an opt out is just the same as indexing the web and providing an opt out.

3) Perhaps we should respect the rights of copyright holders, but those rights have limits beyond which no respect is owed. The authors are going too far in this case.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[cpt kangarooski]

Clauses like that are fairly common in book publishing in my experience, but they are not obligatory and a shady publisher could surely slip one by an unsuspecting author (likely one without good representation).

Meanwhile, check out all the 203 and 304 terminations showing up or about to; plenty of them are the result of a lack of a termination or reversion clause in the license or assignment.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no "reasonable" copyright laws. Find a business model or die. That simple.

You don't get an artificial monopoly.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[grumbel]

You can't opt-in if you are dead, in a coma, clinically insane, etc.

Doesn't matter, copyright still applies. I do like what Google is doing, but it seems to be about as incompatible with current copyright laws as you can get.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The flaw with your scheme is that the first, unfunded work will serve as the example by which the author is judged. It is also the one that is going to be produced in spare hours after the day job that pays the bills, written without the assistance of a professional editor, etc. Rare indeed is the author who can produce their best work under those conditions.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

If Google is making a good effort to set up things in such a way that people can't just copy whole books and make off with them, then there's a good chance that a court might hold that what they're doing is no more illegal than, say, the New York Public Library having lots of book and having photocopiers that people can take them to.

I can't believe any unbiased court is going to fall for that. There are numerous obvious and fundamental differences, starting with the facts that Google is ultimately doing it for profit, not just to provide a public service, and that an automated on-line system that offers easy access to large parts of a work is far more accessible that a system that requires physically attending a library and manually copying every page, which surely amplifies any argument about damaging the value of the original work.

That's what the publishers are afraid of, and that was Google's leverage to negotiate with them.

I suspect that Google's real leverage was that a lot of publishers privately wonder whether this is really doing their bottom line any harm and whether it might not be in their long term interests to turn a blind eye even if their copyrights are technically being infringed. As long as Google is required to provide an opt-out, thus giving the publishers a safety net if they accept the practice and then the data shows that they really are losing out, the publishers have relatively little to lose by agreeing AFAICS.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

That's a reasonable argument for a public copyright registration scheme with an escrow facility.

It's not a good argument for making copyright off-by-default.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we have lost 90% of the Silent Film era and most of the books that exist in libraries have questionable copyright and are decaying.
A world wide preservation operation needed to take place. They only provided small snippets of copyrighted works if the owners opted out.

This and a lot more needs to happen. Few companies are big enough to fight the large scale big media copyright cases on societies behalf.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

This is so ignorant its not even funny. Copyright has been recognized by the US since its founding (its in the constitution, article 2 I believe).

Article I, Section 8, Clause 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.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, sure, a shady publisher could do that, but then it's the author's fault for either 1) dealing with a shady publisher; or 2) not knowing enough about his own industry to demand such a clause be inserted in the contract before signing. But I'm author, I publish through one of the Big Five, and I can tell you that it's most definitely *not* standard practice for publishers to try to screw authors over like that.

If an author is willing to sign a bad contract with a no-name publisher, all bets are off. It's up to the author to make sure that he's not being taken for a ride. But no reputable publisher is going to try to pull that kind of garbage because they know that, once known, would discourage other quality authors from working with them.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[swillden]

Not when our founding "social contract" establishes the protection of IP, we don't.

It does not.

The Constitution authorizes Congress to establish IP protections for limited times and for a specific purpose. It does not require Congress to do so, and it does not authorize Congress to establish any sort of perpetual, unlimited monopoly for any reason or no reason at all. The constitutional basis of IP law was absolutely intended -- and written -- to create exactly the social contract to which the GP referred.

Once things are in law, generally that isnt an option-- laws arent there as a suggestion.

Laws can be wrong, and our current copyright laws are wrong. They're seriously out of balance and in many ways defeat the specific goal authorized in the Constitution. It's unfortunate that SCOTUS hasn't yet been asked the right questions, but I think it's primarily an education problem. When the man on the street understands that "Who owns the copyright to Shakespeare's plays?" isn't a question of inheritance law but simply ridiculous because for anyone to own them would mean an utter failure of copyright law to achieve its intended purpose, then Congress and the courts will remember the social contract and get back to maintaining it.

Keep in mind that the imbalance and lack of understanding is a pretty recent development, as evidenced by Congress' clever solution to the question of how to handle mechanical reproduction rights in the early part of the 20th century.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[swillden]

BTW, if the work is out of print, the copyright typically devolves back to the author.

More exactly, it's pretty rare that the publisher *ever* had ownership of the copyright. The same isn't true of all creative works, but authors have done pretty well at retaining ownership of their creations.

However, that's irrelevant.

The point is that if a book is out of print and unavailable, regardless of whose decision it is to stop producing it, and if copyright law is what's preventing it from being published, then copyright law is failing. The purpose of copyright is to encourage publication, to enrich the public domain by getting stuff out there. The mechanism of copyright is to establish a way for authors to get paid so that they'll want to publish, but that's only the way we've chosen to accomplish the goal, not the goal itself.

This is particularly true when it's actually neither the author nor the publisher who has decided to stop producing it... because often out-of-print books are out-of-print not because anyone has decided they don't want them printed, but because no one is in a position to decide to print them. No publisher has a contract to print them because the author doesn't believe anyone cares about the book any more -- and perhaps the author is unreachable, or even dead, and perhaps the ownership of the book isn't clear. This is somewhat less of a problem with books than it is with films (c.f. Eldred v Ashcroft), but does happen plenty often with older books as well.

Whatever the reason, if a book is no longer actively being printed, it is in the best interests of society for it to be made available other ways. If the law says otherwise, then the law is wrong and should be fixed.

(Disclaimer: I work for Google but this topic has nothing to do with my employment. I don't make decisions for Google about this and they don't make decisions for me, as evidenced by my long history of posting exactly these opinions on this topic, at least a decade before becoming employed by them.)

Re:Intensely idiotic

[tilante]

I can't believe any unbiased court is going to fall for that. There are numerous obvious and fundamental differences, starting with the facts that Google is ultimately doing it for profit, not just to provide a public service, and that an automated on-line system that offers easy access to large parts of a work is far more accessible that a system that requires physically attending a library and manually copying every page, which surely amplifies any argument about damaging the value of the original work.

The law in question, however, does not require the library or archive in question to not be for-profit. It simply has to either provide public access, or, if it's a subject-specialized library, provide access to any researchers doing research in the field. The law also doesn't say anything about how accessible the library/archive in question can or can't be

Also, Google could quite reasonably argue that they were being much more restrictive than the law requires - a library or archive doesn't have to implement any protections to prevent patrons from copying whole books. But Google did that. Indeed, Google won't even let its patrons read the whole work; they only provide access to 20% of it. (And note that that's a fixed 20% - you can't, say, read the first fifth of the book, then come back on another account and read the second fifth.)

I suspect that Google's real leverage was that a lot of publishers privately wonder whether this is really doing their bottom line any harm and whether it might not be in their long term interests to turn a blind eye even if their copyrights are technically being infringed. As long as Google is required to provide an opt-out, thus giving the publishers a safety net if they accept the practice and then the data shows that they really are losing out, the publishers have relatively little to lose by agreeing AFAICS.

I'd agree that if the publishers are being rational, that should certainly be another consideration. Relating to that, from my limited experience with Google's copies of books, it seems that Google tries to pick the 20% they show in a very smart way. The table of contents and other front matter are always there, and at least part of any introduction. Beyond that, pages are sampled from throughout the book, generally seeming to take the first few pages of each chapter or article. Thus, someone reading through can get a good idea of what the book covers, but will generally won't be able to read any particular chapter or article in full. If they are indeed deliberately doing it this way, that would be another argument for them to trot out in favor of this being fair use, since it increases the chance that a patron can see whether the book would be one they'd want to read, while keeping low the chance that they'd be able to simply read everything they want from Google.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[icebraining]

Abolishing copyright and demand free work is a false dichotomy.

Study finds pirates 10 times more likely to buy music

I know that some people find this amazing, but people actually pay for things for reasons besides being The Law.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[icebraining]

Paulo "Pirate" Coelho.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Before we go further, I'd like to point out that I don't have a vested interested for or against Google books. Regardless of any possible benefits to the book author, I do think that Google pushed the envelope on what should be appropriate fair use. My impression of the situation is that Google abused its resources to accomplish something that it thought would make it money regardless of the wishes of the owners of the copyrighted material.

(For others who may be reading this comment: If the idea of someone having ownership of their works offend you then take your argument elsewhere. I have no interest in arguing the merits of copyright. I rather stick with the idea of enforcing the rules as they now exist. I'm sorry but going off topic to make a straw man argument is not furthering this conversation).

1) To the best of my knowledge, the results that Google intended to display consisted of a few lines from any particular book. They had to have an entire copy scanned in because the lines that matched one search would of course be different from the lines that match another. But the users wouldn't see the whole thing in one go. Also, fair use can encompass the entirety of a work. Whether a use is fair will depend on the circumstances involved; there are no bright line rules in fair use.

Here is the gray area. Did Google purchase every book that it scanned? If so then I have no problem with them scanning there own copy into a database and then later on offer a very small snippet to the public as fair use. However if they didn't then technically they made an illegal copy of someone else's work.

2) It's irrelevant that web pages are already on the Internet. Scanning in books and providing an opt out is just the same as indexing the web and providing an opt out.

If they are the same thing then by your reasoning Google is in the wrong. Since most of the books I purchase has a copyright notice which states that all the author's rights are reserved and states how duplication is prohibited, it seems to me that Google ignored the author's attempt to "opt out" at the source and made the digital scans anyway.

3) Perhaps we should respect the rights of copyright holders, but those rights have limits beyond which no respect is owed. The authors are going too far in this case.

Please give an example.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[CCarrot]

The flaw with your scheme is that the first, unfunded work will serve as the example by which the author is judged. It is also the one that is going to be produced in spare hours after the day job that pays the bills, written without the assistance of a professional editor, etc. Rare indeed is the author who can produce their best work under those conditions.

I'm sorry, is there some sort of fairy godmother that provides free cash while an author is writing their first book? They somehow found the time and energy to produce that first work, and now people are interested enough to want to see a second offering. This would simply allow the readers to express their support for that future work directly, rather than indirectly through book sales.

Perhaps the site could provide some percentage of the bucket to the author while they are writing the next work, to help them focus on it and not their day job. Plus, nothing in this model prohibits the author placing their first work up for sale at Amazon, etc., it just means that they had better price it reasonably enough to be able to compete with the public domain copy. eBooks should not be priced the same as or higher than physical books, like some are now (although it's getting better...slowly). If the pricing is low enough and the interest is high enough, that's money they can live on while writing the next book for their bucket, although after the publishers / bookstores / etc. take their cut, it may not be much.

Here's an idea, the same site that people can contribute to future works could also offer DRM-free digital or hard copy direct sales of their last book (or books), with a much higher percentage of the profits going directly to the author than it would through Amazon or other online retailers. Going DRM-Free hasn't hurt the music industry (see iTunes, Amazon MP3, Google Music, etc.), no matter how much the studios bitch about it, since the only thing that is preventing them from making more money on selling MP3's is the fact that they artificially restrict their sales areas (oh, you're Canadian? Sorry, we don't actually want your money here, thanks anyways. No, really, we simply won't sell you this digital file that costs us practically nothing to host across borders, you'll just have to look for it *elsewhere*...so fuck off, eh?)

Contrary to popular (read: corporate) belief, ordinary people don't mind purchasing their media, as long as it's convenient, not ridiculously overpriced, and supports the actual creator of the work...and can't be yanked back at the whim of some greedy or inept corporate lackey, or because it isn't considered 'popular' enough to waste hosting space on it any more (I'm looking at you, Netflix).

Hmmm...

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should corporations granted eternal monopoly rights to control what other citizens can do get in a snit that they have to waggle a finger every now and then to preserve that right?

Boo hoo hoo, I have to spend 3 seconds protecting my eternal right to control other citizens. It's so unfair!

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

You're just a rent seeker then, and thus I don't care what you want. The system must die. If you want to make money writing books, then you have to write books, not just collect the rent.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I'm sorry, is there some sort of fairy godmother that provides free cash while an author is writing their first book?

Yes. They're called publishers, and the free cash is called an advance. It's common practice to provide a significant amount of funding to an author up-front, which is guaranteed but will be reclaimed out of their later earnings if the book makes money. This is done because publishers are picky about which authors they take on but view those they do sign up as investments, so they want the first book from the author (and any book with their publishing house's name on it) to be as good as they can make it.

Contrary to popular (read: corporate) belief, ordinary people don't mind purchasing their media, as long as it's convenient, not ridiculously overpriced, and supports the actual creator of the work...

Unfortunately, the real world evidence is not nearly as clear as you're making out. If it were, this debate would have been over a long time ago.

In reality, when creators offer choose-your-own-pricing, plenty of people do just take the product for free. Even creators who give away their work completely free, from a well designed and robust source available to anyone, still find that a significant number of other people will rip it and redistribute, and a significant number of users are using those "pirate" versions instead of real ones.

Of course there are plenty of people who will be honest and pay a fair price, particularly if it's clearly supporting the people who did the hard work to create the product. But this is nowhere near as universal as you're claiming.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[cpt kangarooski]

I also have no vested interest in Google Book Search, though I think it sounds useful, and I'd probably use it as a research tool if it were available, regardless of whatever legal wrangling had to go on behind the scenes to enable it to work. To me it's basically just an improved card catalog; rather than searching by subject, we can now search for strings or even just individual words. Whether or not Google can profit from it is irrelevant to me. Certainly it is okay to profit from a fair use, such as in the Pretty Woman case (Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 US 569 (1994)).

With regard to the ownership of copies, making any copy of a copyrighted work is infringing, unless there's an applicable exception, or you have permission. It doesn't matter whether or not you own the copy. There may be agreements with the owners of the copies being scanned (which appear to be major libraries) which could be relevant here (eg selling google a limited undivided property right in the collections), and it is arguable that it's not particularly relevant. It mainly pertains to the fourth fair use factor; does this project harm the commercial interests of authors materially less merely because Google owns one copy in paper form? Maybe not so much.

Regarding copyright notices, those are restatements of law, and usually boilerplate. For example the "all rights reserved" are magic words meant to trigger the provisions of the 1910 Buenos Aires Convention. They're anachronistic now, in fact, but survive as traditional cruft. In any event, it can't be construed as an opt out.

Copyright isn't a blanket right to control a work in its entirety. Rather it is a collection of fairly narrowly defined forms of control, which may or may not apply depending on relevant circumstances, and which are subject to numerous limitations which put so many holes in those rights as to make them look like Swiss cheese. Copyright is powerful, but not all-powerful.

For example, everyone has a free speech right to make copies of computer programs. But if the program is copyrighted, this free speech right is temporarily not allowed to be exercised. But if you own a copy of the program (as distinct from owning the copyright), the right to prohibit the making of copies does not apply when you make copies for the purpose of making the program run, or for backing it up. Since no prohibition stops you from doing the things under that circumstance, you're back to exercising your free speech right. (17 USC 106 and 117 deal with all this)

Authors cannot exercise their copyright to opt out of fair use. If google is offering an opt out, it's more out of politeness than necessity. And since this is boilerplate language which usually was fixed before Google Books came along it doesn't do a good job of indicating a desire to opt out of this. Besides, having copyright holders come forward is needed for dealing with orphan works. It's bad policy to allow authors to have power passively.

Regarding limits on the rights of authors, there are countless cases, but one of the most fundamental to my mind would be Baker v. Selden, 101 US 99 (1879). An author tried to claim copyright over something that copyright didn't apply to; he was shot down because authors do not get to define the extent of their rights unless it is to lessen them from the maximum that we deign to grant them. Certainly they cannot expand them.

Re:Intensely idiotic

[gwolf]

The good thing about this is that you have been proven wrong already. The content industries (WTF?) report that illegal copying has grown to previously unimagined levels in the last two decades, but new published creations have grown also beyond predictions.

Authors do not necessarily get any prejudice from this — Part of this new creations are published using novel retribution schemes, such as direct payments, micropayments, etc. Many authors have embraced Creative Commons-like licensing.

If you understand Spanish, I invite you to listen to an interview with Rogerio Azcárraga, the owner of Orfeón, which basically manages all popular music distribution in Mexico. I found it really interesting — And chilling, how he speaks proudly about his business, but basically equates the work of the artists that work with him to selling... boxes of tomatos. And he also makes it clear how benefits for works recorded 50, 70 years ago (and still under copyright for many decades to come) are of benefit for him and his family, not for the creators (i.e. he speaks about Consuelito Velázquez, the author of many songs including world-hit "Bésame mucho", who died in 2005 — "My great-grandchildren will still live off her work")

Re:Intensely idiotic

[CCarrot]

I'm sorry, is there some sort of fairy godmother that provides free cash while an author is writing their first book?

Yes. They're called publishers, and the free cash is called an advance. It's common practice to provide a significant amount of funding to an author up-front, which is guaranteed but will be reclaimed out of their later earnings if the book makes money. This is done because publishers are picky about which authors they take on but view those they do sign up as investments, so they want the first book from the author (and any book with their publishing house's name on it) to be as good as they can make it.

Really? So I can go to a publisher, tell them I have this idea for a book, and they'll give me cash? Sweet deal! Why isn't everyone a writer, then?!?

Contrary to popular (read: corporate) belief, ordinary people don't mind purchasing their media, as long as it's convenient, not ridiculously overpriced, and supports the actual creator of the work...

Unfortunately, the real world evidence is not nearly as clear as you're making out. If it were, this debate would have been over a long time ago.

In reality, when creators offer choose-your-own-pricing, plenty of people do just take the product for free. Even creators who give away their work completely free, from a well designed and robust source available to anyone, still find that a significant number of other people will rip it and redistribute, and a significant number of users are using those "pirate" versions instead of real ones.

Of course there are plenty of people who will be honest and pay a fair price, particularly if it's clearly supporting the people who did the hard work to create the product. But this is nowhere near as universal as you're claiming.

I still can't figure out how that iTunes makes so much money, if that's the case...oh, wait, it's because ordinary people (read, not either cheapskates, broke-ass students or people living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to make rent every month) don't usually mind paying a bit for their entertainment, even if they know it can be had for free elsewhere. If they only made the paid media a more convenient and reliable option than the pirated versions, with suitably large percentages of the reasonable purchase price clearly going to the artists, Ma and Pa Johnson would prefer that to fiddling around with torrents and the like. As it is, the legal options are the most annoying and user unfriendly, while the pirated versions are sleek and simple to use (once downloaded or ripped).

Just look at Google music to see how it's done (barring stupid artificial restrictions on geography). Now we just need the same system (i.e., DRM-Free purchase/downloads/storage) for video and ebooks. TOR and Baen are DRM-Free on all their ebooks, and guess what? Those are the only two publishers I'll buy ebooks from because I know that if the format I bought doesn't work on one of my readers, I can format shift it without hassle because it's *mine*, it's not artificially broken. And yes, I may also lend it to a friend or two, but in that case the publisher is getting exactly the same profit as they would if I bought, read, then shared a hard copy...a wider reader base for certain authors, and potential future sales from new fans.

...and in the rest of the world?

[Roger W Moore]

so U.S. publishers can choose...

What about the rest of the world? If the US publisher of a particular book says 'no' and the British publisher says 'yes' does the book get scanned or not? Does it get scanned but censored in the US? What about books with no US publisher?

Re:...and in the rest of the world?

[bill_mcgonigle]

What about the rest of the world?

Hey, that's what the legal system and copyright law get you. 196 different settlements required.

Oh, another bulllet point for the "IP is damaging" list.

Re:...and in the rest of the world?

[cpt kangarooski]

The last thing we want is a uniform global copyright law; it would inevitably be terrible for most of the countries involved.

Better to have each country write their own copyright laws (or not) from scratch, with the one core principle being that it should best serve the people of that country -- not authors, not publishers, not people elsewhere in the world. The only things I'd want to see done globally are 1) national treatment so that anyone who seeks a copyright in a given jurisdiction isn't discriminated agains on the basis of their nationality, citizenship, language, etc. Whatever the locals can get, foreigners can get too. 2) That copyright laws not be mutually exclusive in such a way that an author would have to decide between getting a copyright in one jurisdiction or another. Getting rights one place shouldn't shut you out of another.

Author's Guild lawsuit still alive

[Animats]

Remember what happened here. Google tried to rewrite copyright law through litigation so that Google would have the exclusive right to digitize and resell works in copyright, subject to paying fees through some clearinghouse. The judge didn't go for that. The agreement now just affects material controlled by members of the Association of American Publishers.

Re:Author's Guild lawsuit still alive

[Anonymous Coward]

They never wanted an exclusive license. They just wanted a license. People painting it as "exclusive" just weren't willing to go through all the trouble to scan the stuff on their own.

Re:Author's Guild lawsuit still alive

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect... my university is one of the ones involved. The digitized stuff goes into an escrow type holding "partnership" for lack of better words.

Also Google switched the list a while ago and is only requesting creative commons licensed works (or those out of copyright) but no doubt the lawsuit had something to do with that

Re:Author's Guild lawsuit still alive

[Anonymous Coward]

To add to this, universities and others have been digitizing books for years (1990ish) but their speeds in doing so aren't so hot even though they thought they were. Then Google came along and said "we can do X thousand books every week (I forget the exact number) which was a massive increase over what the universities could do, so the universities said "okay sounds good"

Took 7 years for common sense approach?

[realsilly]

That's ashamed it took 7 years to agree to something that summed up sounds so reasonably easy to agree to.

*sigh* sounds like the lawyers milked both sides for all they were both worth.

The media industry wins again

[nurb432]

And the citizens lose, as free access to knowledge takes another step backwards.

I hope Google does the right thing

[DickBreath]

Don't be evil.

I hope Google does the right thing and publishes a list of all publishers who opt out of Google's book scanning project. The list should be public and searchable.

That makes it clear to authors which publishers are clueless. if an author publishes his book with one of these publishers, the author just made sure his book is not searchable by the best search tool on the planet.

As a consumer, not only will I not happen to find any books from these clueless publishers, I would like such a list so that I can actively avoid buying from such clueless publishers.

Let evolution take its course. Dinosaur publishers who don't want Google searching their books. Etc.

Re:I hope Google does the right thing

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll bet you're the kind of precious customer who buys a book, then returns it a week later after having read half of it.

They won't miss your business.

Re:I hope Google does the right thing

[DickBreath]

Um, no.

When I buy a book I am quite sure I want it permanently on my bookshelf. Clueful publishers are helpful in this process. Sometimes they put one chapter of the book online for free. Other times, I can preview bits of it on Amazon. Etc. Just like back in the previous millennium I could turn the pages of the actual book and look at it before taking it to the checkout counter.

If you're so against google scanning your book, then you must not want your book to be found. And furthermore, I don't want to read it. Yes, I know that I don't want to read it before I even know what the title is. If the publisher, and the author are that clueless, let them stay stuck in the previous millennium.

As an individual author I did not grant permission

[WillAffleckUW]

The publisher can't grant permission for my works in the Library of Congress, because I had them printed myself.

Therefore, this "deal" still violates my COPYRIGHT.

Period.

I'm not dead yet.

Re:As an individual author I did not grant permiss

[localhost8080]

this means that you are the publisher, and you could revoke your permission. http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3163743&cid=41551725

Re:As an individual author I did not grant permiss

[WillAffleckUW]

Costs me money.

More poll taxes on us.

Remind me again... "publishers"?

[Rogerborg]

Were they the ones who made buggy whips?

Ass shoving is not a human right

[istartedi]

Copyright *is* a social bargain, but nobody has a right to "ass shoving". The copyright holders have a right to perform their work without being exploited and/or being forced to seek wealthy patrons as their only source of income. The General Public has a right to receive the productions of the IP holders without being subject to disproportionate penalty for violations, undue terms of restriction, or other features of a system that might skew things too far in favor of the other party.

Neither side has an absolute "ass shoving" right over the others, because as usual there's a HEALTY BALANCE that exists somewhere between absolutism on either side.

Re:Ass shoving is not a human right

[cheekyjohnson]

The copyright holders have a right to perform their work without being exploited and/or being forced to seek wealthy patrons as their only source of income.

Only so long as copyright exists. Laws can change.

because as usual there's a HEALTY BALANCE that exists somewhere between absolutism on either side.

Whether or not it's a "healthy balance" is quite subjective.

Correct Attribution

[Electrawn]

Great job on the correct link attributions in summary. Gold star.

Re:As an individual author I did not grant permiss

[HeckRuler]

Usually if you have a publisher, it's no longer YOUR works. It's theirs.
It's kind of a crock.

We, the People

[Anonymous Coward]

At least in the United States, the Constitution specifically prohibits "We the People" (since the US is in theory a government by the people) from depriving individuals of property without due process (which generally involves finding that there's been some wrongdoing to penalize them for, or if not, then some form of recompense). So there are many rights that "We the People" have, but that's one of the few that we specifically DON'T have, just like we don't have the right to tell people what they can or can't say or think or publish, or what god they have to worship.

That's not to say intellectual property should be absolute--don't get me wrong, I'm not in that camp either--but copyright is a "social bargain" in the same sense that protecting your right to post your thoughts is a "social bargain." So, I'm just a bit hesitant on retracting or unilaterally altering those bargains, because of where and how else that principle could be applied. ("I have altered our agreement... Pray I don't alter it further.")

Re:We, the People

[cheekyjohnson]

So, I'm just a bit hesitant on retracting or unilaterally altering those bargains, because of where and how else that principle could be applied.

Copyright really doesn't seem like any other right. If it was like other rights, it wouldn't be temporary (technically, it is temporary even now).

Orphaned works?!

[Anonymous Coward]

The BIG issue was not so much the books that are under copyright with a known rights holder, it was actually the orphaned works for which a current rights holder can not be readily identified.

The Books-AA's of this world tried to claim it as theirs, and Google didn't want to go for that. If the rights holder cannot be found, it is not some Guild or Association that "thus" represents the rights holder and entitled to monies (with the money reverting to them at the latest after the copyright expires but more likely pocketed right away).

5th amendment not copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

"nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

That right isn't temporary.

Re: the common good

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no such thing as a common good.

If the copyright holder wants

[Anonymous Coward]

If the dead insane or otherwise unavailable copyright holder wants, they can sue for copyright infringement.

But until then, nobody else has a case.

Oh, and the copyrights only give the copyright holder rights that copyrights give. It doesn't matter how much you hate what Google are doing, if it's fair use, then you have no recourse to any action to remove it.

If you don't like the rights not reserved being exercised by the purchasers of a copy, then feel free NOT TO PUBLISH AT ALL.

I'd get a different job.

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed this is what you are completely available to do. Don't make any more copyrighted work.We will not make you.

All those copies, however, ARE NOT YOUR WORK. They are someone else's.

Protection of your copyright costs me money.

[Anonymous Coward]

More poll taxes on us because you're grabbing rights you don't have scope to demand.

What google is doing is not infringing on your copyright. Your rights are limited and google are not infringing on them, no matter how pissed off you might be.

Don't like the deal? Don't publish anything and keep it secret.

Your published book isn't private property.

[Anonymous Coward]

The copy of your book you were given or bought is your private property, but your published work is NOT private property.

If you want to keep your works private property, DO NOT PUBLISH AT ALL.