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What Ever Happened To Google Books?
An anonymous reader writes: Tim Wu at the New Yorker wonders about the present and future of Google Books. He calls it the most ambitious library project of our time — it seemed so promising when it started. Google developed the requisite technology, made the necessary partnerships to get it done, and put ridiculous amounts of effort into it. Despite their accomplishment, Google Books is merely a shadow of what it could have been. They just couldn't fight through the intellectual property issues that arose. "If Google was, in truth, motivated by the highest ideals of service to the public, then it should have declared the project a non-profit from the beginning, thereby extinguishing any fears that the company wanted to somehow make a profit from other people's work.
Unfortunately, Google made the mistake it often makes, which is to assume that people will trust it just because it's Google. For their part, authors and publishers, even if they did eventually settle, were difficult and conspiracy-minded, particularly when it came to weighing abstract and mainly worthless rights against the public's interest in gaining access to obscure works. Finally, the outside critics and the courts were entirely too sanguine about killing, as opposed to improving, a settlement that took so many years to put together, effectively setting the project back a decade if not longer."
Unfortunately, Google made the mistake it often makes, which is to assume that people will trust it just because it's Google. For their part, authors and publishers, even if they did eventually settle, were difficult and conspiracy-minded, particularly when it came to weighing abstract and mainly worthless rights against the public's interest in gaining access to obscure works. Finally, the outside critics and the courts were entirely too sanguine about killing, as opposed to improving, a settlement that took so many years to put together, effectively setting the project back a decade if not longer."
They lose interest in it and it fades away. Eventually it will be shut down.
When you're measuring against the accumulation of all human knowledge?
You took advantage of 3000 years of Western Civilization and what you supposedly "wrote by yourself" is now part of the common culture. So stop being a greedy little shit! We're doing you a favor!!!
Whoa-ho-ho-ho-ho. What's yours is mine is ours.
BTW if you had bought our stock 15 years ago you'd be a wealthy man. We have a pretty good business here, and I'm thinking of buying a golf course.
This is missing the key component of Google shutdown, though. No one has based their life/work/etc around it to be devastated when it shuts down.
The last time somebody tried this was the Library of Alexandria which required the dictates and commands of several kings. Even then they had to pay money to the Athenians to get some documents.
Knowledge is power. Power isn't easily shared.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
That's what happens when you have so much money that you can literally do anything you want. Nothing is important and you jump from one project to another.
Even worse.. Libraries stop trying because they figure google can do it better than they ever could. Libraries shut down, people leave the profession and the net situation is worse.
PS: I wonder when google will open up their web cache - this is something government should have a role in also.
"If Google was, in truth, motivated by the highest ideals of service to the public..."
Are you sure the motivation wasn't data mining?
Or: anything I use and love, Google destroys.
I guess it's more like "it was someone's pet project and that guy left Google, and now nobody gives a shit about it anymore".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Unfortunately, Google made the mistake it often makes, which is to assume that people will trust it just because it's Google.
Don't you mean, people assume that just because it's Google that it should absolutely not be trusted?
Whatever goodwill Google might have once had (which is debatable), they've long since squandered it away. They're now the used-car salesmen of the tech world -- no one trusts them at all.
What happened to it? It's at http://books.google.com/
Better known as 318230.
There's no such thing.
> For their part, authors and publishers, even if they did eventually settle, were difficult and conspiracy-minded,
I'm afraid it's because they've dealt with publishers and agents. They are _accustomed_ to being gouged by people who claim to be there to help, and a certain amount of paranoia is an evolutionary pressure for authors: those who don't practice caution tend to get out of writing very quickly.
Google Books is a project from a profit-driven enterprise. HathiTrust (www.hathitrust.org) is a non-profit with the same data, and does its work for the common good of human kind.
The libraries that partnered with Google to digitize those books have created a non-profit organization to preserve the works, and provide access to them where they can. If you want to talk about a modern Library of Alexandria, they are doing it, and doing it well.
Google Books also had a part in creating HathiTrust in the library world: https://www.hathitrust.org/about
And, therefore, in a sense it also helped bring about the Digital Public LIbrary of America: http://dp.la/info/
Even worse.. Libraries stop trying because they figure google can do it better than they ever could. Libraries shut down, people leave the profession and the net situation is worse.
PS: I wonder when google will open up their web cache - this is something government should have a role in also.
Don't you worry. Government already has a role in just about all the data Google has "cached".
Just fyi for the public, the lawsuit against Google Books was dismissed.
Google successfully used fair use as a defense and all claims were denied.
Personal profits to Google aside, they also scored a major precedent that will pave the way for future orphan works revivals.
Projects like this exist for two reasons: (1) someone can make a profit on it and/or (2) someone takes a personal interest in it. Given all the legal b.s. that publishers, authors, librarians, and self-proclaimed Internet activists have thrown at anybody trying to put books online, it's hardly surprising when companies stop running such businesses. And all that legal b.s. also means that many people who would otherwise have a personal interest just say "fuck this" and move on to projects where they are subjected to less abuse.
"If Google was, in truth, motivated by the highest ideals of service to the public, then it should have declared the project a non-profit from the beginning, thereby extinguishing any fears that the company wanted to somehow make a profit from other people's work."
This assumes that non-profits are somehow honorable and trustworthy. I suppose that some are worthy but unless they are up front with their financials I don't trust them at all. The voice of experience.
OTOH, if Google donated the results of their acquisitions to the Library of Congress or other body above reproach, yeah go for it! I don't recall ever hearing of a lawsuit against the LoC, but too lazy to check.
...omphaloskepsis often...
"effectively setting the project back a decade if not longer"
It seems that the simplest solution is to wait. And hope that Google survives various future and as-yet-unknown disruptive technologies.
"Unfortunately, Google made the mistake it often makes, which is to assume that people will trust it just because it's Google."
Such a true statement---and only Google makes this mistake.
Some of us know not to trust the government.
"...assume that people will trust it just because it's Google."
As a medieval recreationist, I use google books a lot its great for ancient or not-on-display manuscripts and books, being able to search within the documents is also very useful especially when dealing with ancient spelling (or lack thereof)
Google books succeeded in a niche where its failed the public, don't worry most people don't read books anymore, let alone actually research something.
There's a reason why practically anyone who had a dog in the fight, and many who didn't, arranged themselves in opposition to Google and the sockpuppet 'Author's Guild'.
And they had damn good reason to be so. Not only did the lawsuit verge on being a sockpuppet, Google was trying (basically) not only to get exclusive rights to the material, but also rigging the game so they paid a third party who may or may not (most likely not) actually represent the author or their estate. Then to make matters worse - there was no statutory requirement that said third party actually make any effort to locate the persons to whom the money was due. The onus was placed entirely on said individual to prove that they were in fact the rightful recipient (to the satisfaction of said third party).
It was a horribly bad deal for anyone who wasn't Google. And that includes the public - who would see what should be available to all locked up under the aegis of a single corporation.
The problem is that a SINGLE profit-making company (especially one with a HUGE reputation for killing projects like flies) should NOT replace the distributed role of libraries/librarians in archiving work. If one of the latter dies, there are a thousand more to pick up the pace just a little. If all of the latter are supplanted by the former, then we're all fucked if the former stops/delays its work.
Never ever put culture in the hands of ultra-wealthy, well-connected business, whether that's RIAA or MPAA or Google. Competition is based on the idea that the weak die off but the strong get stronger - this might work (sometimes) for developing new things, but this isn't a sustainable model for preserving the past.
That would be fine. But they keep the accumulated patents and stop other people from picking it up. Bloody software patents. Also, Google can buy up any company with a good idea, and thereby stop them from becoming competition.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
It is important to start looking and collaborate with www.archive.org. It is more known for the waybackmachine, but the new archive.org site is a very interesting site to upload content, books, audio, video that are available to the public.
Don't be silly. Google couldn't monetize it. Takes a lot of work, and produces no revenue. Android was designed to boost ad revenues, which is their core money maker. Google Play makes revenue, but does Google own music, media, and other intangible property for phones? No-- just the YouTube banner ads and the sponsored results of search.
Apple has a pretty fat wad of cash by understanding somewhat benign monetizing of services. Google is not so smart.... or honest, IMHO.
Services and products are whimsical, unsupported and have comparatively poor customer service. Now, even the Google driverless car initiative faces $60 kits that stop their cars cold because, yeah, they thought of *security first*.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
A side project of the Web Archive is OpenLibrary. I've checked out a number of old books there that I would never expect to find in any local library or bookstore!
"They just couldn't fight through the intellectual property issues that arose."
Glosses over the fact that the "intellectual property issues" was Google uploading every book they could get their hands on without so much as asking the authors or publishers, never mind compensating them. The "issues" were holesale theft and bullying by a megacorporation.
It seems that the simplest solution is to wait. And hope that Google survives various future and as-yet-unknown disruptive technologies.
Frankly, I think the simplest solution is to copy Google. There is nothing stopping anyone from doing that. It sounds like a rather promising prospect for a good, real non-profit.
I must say, I am one of those people who did not trust Google with this. I think time has borne me out. These days, I don't trust Google with much of anything. And they have nobody to blame but themselves for that.
Unfortunately with Google they go from one project to another like caffeine riddled Wiz Kids who become disinterested very quickly in projects. I think its always been clear that Google with almost every project looks for a golden reward for its efforts. Rightly so given its a private enterprise that requires profits to survive, has a long list of investors and employee's worldwide. But in the real world people want to make money, the authors of books, the publisher, and the distributor.
But I also think electronic books success was kind of based on how many people were interested in having a device to read those books. Maybe at one time Google thought they would sell ads embedded in free books and also devices to read them? Amazon has the best system along with Apple. Sell the devices, sell the books and those who want to read will come.
This seems to me like a case of law against people. It is my opinion that intellectual property law needs to be significantly scaled back, with the goal of eventually abolishing altogether, so that projects like Google Books can flourish. The benefits for humanity as a whole are too great to ignore. I would advocate to reduce the time it takes for a copyrighted work to become public domain to something like five years. With most works under public domain, the availability of art, literature, technology, would be immense, and enrich our species beyond belief.
I agree, I think Google have done some wonderful things like Street View and Maps and their curation of the internet into an easily searchable resource, it's just a shame that of late they seem to be getting more and more underhand trying to monetise everything.
Martley, Near Worcester UK.
Tim Wu's piece could have been written in March 2011, when the judge in the case rejected the Settlement Google attempted with the authors and publishers. It is the contents of that Settlement that Wu is writing about here, not the Google Books project as it has existed since 2004. In the past 11 years, Google has done what it set out to do in 2004: it has created a virtual card catalog with the amazing feature that you can search through 30 million books. Wow! That's not a failure; it's a great achievement. To boot, after great lawyering, the courts have found it to be fair use. The case is still on appeal but they seem to have a strong hand. Courts love this project because it is a net positive for the world and no one is harmed.
Tim Wu wants more, and that's fine, but he shouldn't come across as blaming Google Books. He can hope for Orphan Works legislation, but rather he has chosen to go back to renegotiating the Google Books Settlement, four and a half years out. Weird. I have to wonder if there is some back story to this, only known to insiders and their friends. Otherwise, this piece is just weird.
Look, copyright means nothing unless it means that authors or copyright holders generally get to control what happens with their work product. Most of them want to get paid, just like you.
Sure patents in software are a national shrine to special interest, deep pockets lobbying against the public good. But copyright? Really? Libraries are the way we've worked this very issue out. Libraries work. Get a card.
Google thought it could just strong arm aside all those vibrant, diverse geniuses who wrote all those interesting books because why, they're Google? They're bigger, hipper and more important that the little people whose ideas and writing this project would be nothing without?
But then we're talking about a company that has nothing but contempt, finally, for workers which is why they and their CEO Eric Schmidt knowingly and deliberately engaged in an illegal conspiracy with Apple and Adobe and oh a few hundred other companies to create a do-not-hire blacklist and limit people's wages, costing those people hundreds of millions of dollars . Where i come from that's called stealing but since no one is going to go to jail for stealing a few hundred million, I guess it's not stealing after all because if it were stealing, people would be going to jail instead of being appointed ambassador by Obama.
Anyway, that's what Google thinks of people who work for a living, and that contempt extends from Nobel prize winning authors to cookbook authors and everyone in between and is, in fact, is so vast it essentially expands to fill all space in the known universe.
Very poor people bootlegging copies of copyrighted works is a look the other way affair for society. It's just better than the alternative which is poor people don't even get access to the significant parts of the larger cultural context they're embedded in. But making a defacto copy machine then turning that loose on absolutely everyone's work ? What were they thinking?
They were thinking "We're Google".