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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.
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.
"If Google was, in truth, motivated by the highest ideals of service to the public..."
Are you sure the motivation wasn't data mining?
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.
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.
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.