Google's Print Project

[Firemeboy]

Your understanding is wrong.  They did ask you and they did ask me.  Or rather, their machines asked our machines.  For public web pages, like this one and your blog, we set our machines to give permission to anyone who asks to download the content we post there.  Google's machines have to have permission from our machines in order to download (copy) the content we put there.

There is a difference between my machine contacting cnn.com and 'downloading' the information stored on it's computer to display, and Google making a permanent copy on their machines to store, display later, and archive.  

I wrote a poem about 15 years ago and posted it to an old usenet group.  That poem is still stored on Google's servers.  They have made a copy of it.  And the argument that "if I put it on the web, I should just expect it", isn't in the current copyright law.  

[The Jade Knight]

For public web pages, like this one and your blog, we set our machines to give permission to anyone who asks to download the content we post there.  Google's machines have to have permission from our machines in order to download (copy) the content we put there.

Oh, so you're telling me that because they posted stuff on their website, I can legally copy everything on Games Workshop's website and put it up on my own?

I don't know where you get your ideas, Skar, but if I did this, I could (and would) be sued, and would lose.  Posting something publicly on the Internet is NOT the same as granting people to legally copy it - and telling a bot to "go away" is NOT considered a security provision (as protected by the DMCA).  I actually read about a case where this was brought up and shot down.  In other words, no one is under any obligation to not bot (and thus auto-list/archive) your site.  Posting stuff on the internet still means it's copyrighted, and yet Google can go and archive it publicly without asking you (by any real, useful definition of the term).

So tell me, again, how you specifically give Google permission?

[Skar]

Google is doing something that has never been done before; making copies of printed texts...

It most certainly has been done before, and without permission like Google wants to do.  That kind of theft is why the copyright laws were seen as necessary in the first place.

Again, you can point to the law and say what Google does online is illegal, but it would be silly to shut down search engines based on old copyright law.

Dude, no one is saying that what Google is doing online is illegal.  Only you.

I wrote a poem about 15 years ago and posted it to an old usenet group.  That poem is still stored on Google's servers.  They have made a copy of it.  And the argument that "if I put it on the web, I should just expect it", isn't in the current copyright law.

Yes, it is in the copyright law.  The current copyright law allows you to give people permission to copy your work.  15 years ago you gave permission to everybody and their dog to make a copy of your poem and store it locally.  It's how the web works.  You can't read a web page without making a copy of it.  And you can't make a copy of it without getting PERMISSION first.  It's built into the machines.

I've said before that Google does more with their copy than the rest of us.  But it doesn't make their use of their copy of your poem, which you gave them permission to make 15 years ago, either illegal or any different than the use everybody else makes or could make of it.  The salient point here is that you gave EVERYBODY permission to make local copies of your work, including Google.  We're having this discussion because they are trying to make copies of works for which they DON'T have permission.  

Oh, so you're telling me that because they posted stuff on their website, I can legally copy everything on Games Workshop's website and put it up on my own?

Again, this is a situation that is fundamentally different from what the rest of us are talking about.  Posting Games Workshop's entire website on your own website can only reasonably be compared to posting an entire book on Google's website.  Google is NOT proposing to display entire books on their website.  Only snippets.  No one has a problem with snippets because they are covered by fair use.  I have permission from Games Workshop to make a local copy of every page on their site.  I couldn't view them otherwise.  What I have a problem with is Google making a copy of a book that they DON'T have permission to copy.

 I don't know where you get your ideas, Skar, but if I did this, I could (and would) be sued, and would lose.  Posting something publicly on the Internet is NOT the same as granting people to legally copy it - and telling a bot to "go away" is NOT considered a security provision (as protected by the DMCA).  I actually read about a case where this was brought up and shot down.  In other words, no one is under any obligation to not bot (and thus auto-list/archive) your site.  Posting stuff on the internet still means it's copyrighted, and yet Google can go and archive it publicly without asking you (by any real, useful definition of the term).

No one is talking about bots here.  I wasn't talking about bots.  It's got nothing to do with bots.  The infrastructure of the web is expressly designed, you could say it is hardcoded, to provide the means to copy data to those who request it.  You cannot view a webpage without getting permission to copy it.  Period.  

So tell me, again, how you specifically give Google permission?

You give Google permission to copy your website by telling your server to give their servers permission.  You.  It's not some sort of cosmic force that causes files stored in a certain place to be shared on the internet.  Your server doesn't make the decision on its own.  You make the decision.  You grant permission.  If you wanted, you could store your poem on the same server you store your publicly available webpages, you could even store it in the same directory structure, and NOT grant permission for that particular file to be shared. (lots of people choose to share certain pages on their site only with paid subscribers, that is the principle in action) The only way Google can make a copy of your webpage is if YOU told the server to allow the copy to be made.  It doesn't matter what you consider to be a "real, useful definition of the term."  Unless servers have gained the power of independent thought while I wasn't looking you explicitly instructed the servers that served your poem to grant permission to copy it to anyone who asked.  It doesn't matter if you don't have a firm grasp on how the internet works, you still gave permission to everyone to copy your web page.  Google takes that permission and does a lot with it.  Good for them.  If they had permission to copy the books they want to copy then I would be absolutely thrilled at the use they propose to make of it.  The fact remains that they don't have that permission.

[The Jade Knight]

The infrastructure of the web is expressly designed, you could say it is hardcoded, to provide the means to copy data to those who request it.  You cannot view a webpage without getting permission to copy it.  Period.

Your use of "permission to copy" is somewhat dysfunctional - while you are technically copying the page technologically, you are still forbidden by copyright to make copies of the page (even for personal use) through any sort of "manual" (or meaningful) process.  Your computer's temporary copying of the webpage in order to view it is considered "Fair Use".  The pages in question do not abridge their copyright protections by posting on the internet.  However, internet technology requires, in order for the internet to function, an important acceptance of Fair Use or unregulated use provisions.

And that's exactly the sort of thing we're talking about here.

[Skar]

Ok, if anything was dysfunctional it was that paragraph.  

Your use of "permission to copy" is somewhat dysfunctional - while you are technically copying the page technologically, you are still forbidden by copyright to make copies of the page (even for personal use) through any sort of "manual" (or meaningful) process.

 

You're forbidden to make copies unless given permission and unless you give permission, no one can view your webpage.  What's so hard about that?

 Your computer's temporary copying of the webpage in order to view it is considered "Fair Use".  The pages in question do not abridge their copyright protections by posting on the internet.

You're absolutely right.  Posting pages on the internet does not abridge their copyright protections.  I never said it did.  Giving permission to people to copy your webpages, so that they can view them, is totally within the copyright law.  It doesn't require an abridgement of any sort.  It's just like you giving someone permission to make a copy of your book.

 However, internet technology requires, in order for the internet to function, an important acceptance of Fair Use or unregulated use provisions.

And that's exactly the sort of thing we're talking about here.

As I've pointed out internet technology does not, in fact, require acceptance of "fair use or unregulated use provisions." Permission is requested and granted in every transaction.

Look.  You misunderstand my position.  I'm not arguing that posting something to the internet implies a waiver of copyright protection.  Far from it.  No one can view anything you've posted to the internet without getting EXPLICIT permission, from you, to make a copy of it.  Just because that permission is asked for and received automatically by the various computers used by the requestor and the requestee doesn't mean it doesn't happen.  It does.  And you instructed your server to grant permission to all those who request it to copy your web pages.  The computer isn't responsible for itself; you are responsible for your computer.

[The Jade Knight]

It's just like you giving someone permission to make a copy of your book.

This is absolutely false.

I could take an article published on TWG and reproduce it on my website, but I would be in violation of copyright if I did not receive express permission to make such a copy.  The same rule would apply if I were to print such an article out and begin making copies for my friends.  In either case, TWG would be within their rights to sue, and if they did, they would win.

Just because something is posted on the internet does not mean the user has permission to copy as he likes.  I've read enough books and articles on copyright, intellectual property, and internet regulation in the past few years to be quite certain of this.

[Skar]

I could take an article published on TWG and reproduce it on my website, but I would be in violation of copyright if I did not receive express permission to make such a copy.
The same rule would apply if I were to print such an article out and begin making copies for my friends.  In either case, TWG would be within their rights to sue, and if they did, they would win.

You're smearing two different things together here.  Making a copy of a TWG webpage so you can view it is not, as you seem to think, the same as redistributing it on your own website.  I've never claimed it was.  I'm getting kind of tired of you taking part of my statements, out of context, and attempting to make hay with them.  In my post, a single sentence away from what you quoted was the phrase, "Giving permission to people to copy your webpages, SO THAT THEY CAN VIEW THEM, is totally within the copyright law."  The difference you're failing to grasp is the one between viewing a webpage and redistributing it.  Google's online search does not redistribute entire webpages, it displays snippets, which is covered under fair use.  In order to search the webpages we're talking about Google did, in fact, have to make copies of them and store them locally.  This is where you seem to think that what Google is doing online coincides with what they want to do with the print project.  

They do not coincide.

This is why:  Google obtains permission to make a local copy of every webpage is puts on its servers.  It is physically impossible for Google to obtain a local copy of the webpages in question without getting permission first.  Period.  There is no way around this.  It is physically impossible for ANYONE to view webpages without getting permission to make a local copy.   Google has permission for every single webpage they have stored on their servers.

Google wants to copy books WITHOUT getting permission.  
If they got permission to make a copy of a book, by paying for it, or by obtaining the permission of the author, they could display snippets from it all day long and not break copyright.

So, to restate.  

Google copies webpage locally, displays only snippets?
Legal because permission was obtained first.

Google copies book locally, displays only snippets?  
Illegal because permission was NOT obtained first.

Just because something is posted on the internet does not mean the user has permission to copy as he likes.  I've read enough books and articles on copyright, intellectual property, and internet regulation in the past few years to be quite certain of this.

You're absolutely right.  Unfortunately, because you seem to really want to argue someone who takes this view, no one here thinks that way.  And it isn't relevant to the discussion at hand.  

You seem to be struggling with the mechanics of interaction on the internet.  I've tried to explain it as best I could but it has made no impression.  Perhaps you should get someone else to explain to you how your computer goes about obtaining and displaying the webpages you look at.

[Firemeboy]

Skar, I'm not sure I understand what you are saying either.  Are you saying that fact that you put your material on the internet, is granting permission for anybody to make a copy (for display purposes) of your work?  Google goes well beyond this.

Making a copy of a TWG webpage so you can view it is not, as you seem to think, the same as redistributing it on your own website.

This is, in fact, exactly what Google does.  They make a copy of websites to store on their servers.  They display those sites in their entirety, in snippets, as well as searching through them.  If I closed down my blog today, you could still access it from the servers on google. They would be distributing their copy of my site, a copy they made without my express permission.  I can opt out, but they don't have to ask to make a copy and store it.

So Google isn't making a copy of my site just to view locally, they are making a copy to both search through, re-distribute snippets, and re-distribute the site in it's entirety.  

If this isn't 'technically' breaking copyright law, I don't know what it.  But if you shut this down, you would shut down the usefulness of the internet.

I think we can both agree that what Google is doing is good for the free flow of information, and that the same free flow can, and should, be applied to books (with the exception of redistributing them in their entirety, of course).

Another good article for those interested.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/point-of-google-print.html

Even those critics who understand that copyright law is not absolute argue that making a full copy of a given work, even just to index it, can never constitute fair use. If this were so, you wouldn't be able to record a TV show to watch it later or use a search engine that indexes billions of Web pages. The aim of the Copyright Act is to protect and enhance the value of creative works in order to encourage more of them -- in this case, to ensure that authors write and publishers publish. We find it difficult to believe that authors will stop writing books because Google Print makes them easier to find, or that publishers will stop selling books because Google Print might increase their sales.

And why they are doing it...

Imagine sitting at your computer and, in less than a second, searching the full text of every book ever written. Imagine an historian being able to instantly find every book that mentions the Battle of Algiers. Imagine a high school student in Bangladesh discovering an out-of-print author held only in a library in Ann Arbor. Imagine one giant electronic card catalog that makes all the world's books discoverable with just a few keystrokes by anyone, anywhere, anytime.

And on the mechanics of web searching.

In order to guide users to the information they're looking for, we copy and index all the Web sites we find. If we didn't, a useful search engine would be impossible, and the same dynamic applies to the Google Print Library Project. By most estimates, less than 20% of books are in print, and only around 20% of titles, according to the Online Computer Library Center, are in the public domain. This leaves a startling 60% of all books that publishers are unlikely to be able to add to our program and readers are unlikely to find. Only by physically scanning and indexing every word of the extraordinary collections of our partner libraries at Michigan, Stanford, Oxford, the New York Public Library and Harvard can we make all these lost titles discoverable with the level of comprehensiveness that will make Google Print a world-changing resource.

That last one is particularly important, I think, in this discussion.  60 percent of all books are for the most part, unavailable to almost all of the population.  To me, that is a tragedy.  But a tragedy that Google has proposed a solution to, and I think we shouldn’t use old laws and technicalities to prevent the solution from being implemented.

That is, of course, all personal opinion.

[Skar]

Skar, I'm not sure I understand what you are saying either.  Are you saying that fact that you put your material on the internet, is granting permission for anybody to make a copy (for display purposes) of your work?  ...

That is not what I'm saying.  I honestly don't know how I can say this any more plainly.  "Viewing" a webpage IS making a copy of it.  In order to view a webpage you have to download a copy of it.  There is no other way for you to view it.  It is not like looking at a book.  You don't have to make a new copy of a book to look at it.  You do have to make a new copy of a webpage to look at it.  Here's the crunch: In order for you to make a new copy of a webpage you have to get permission to do so.  This is what happens when you click on a link or type in a URL.  Your computer talks to the computer that hosts the webpage you want to look at.  Your computer says, "I want to make a copy of such-and-such file."  The host computer checks what its users have instructed it to do concerning that file.  If the host computer's users have instructed it to allow other computers to download copies of that file it says, "You have permission to make a copy of that file, prepare to receive it."  Your computer then receives the file from the host computer.  Permission is requested and granted for every single file.  

This is, in fact, exactly what Google does.  They make a copy of websites to store on their servers.  They display those sites in their entirety, in snippets, as well as searching through them.  If I closed down my blog today, you could still access it from the servers on google. They would be distributing their copy of my site, a copy they made without my express permission.  I can opt out, but they don't have to ask to make a copy and store it.

So Google isn't making a copy of my site just to view locally, they are making a copy to both search through, re-distribute snippets, and re-distribute the site in it's entirety.  

Ok, you have a good point.  I never use the cached copy Google provides and so I wasn't factoring it in.  My mistake.  In my opinion Google is on shaky ground with the redistribution you're talking about, what you get when you click the "cached" link instead of the primary link.  The extenuating circumstances (why I don't just say what they're doing is illegal) are things like the fact that they don't display cached copies of pages that are behind paying member portals.  They only display things that were/are freely available to anyone who cared to ask.  And they don't claim or even imply that they are the authors.   But in the end, Google's redistribution is not germaine to the discussion at hand because it is neither what they are proposing to do with the Print project, nor is it integral to what they do on the web.

But if you shut this down, you would shut down the usefulness of the internet.

And this is patently untrue.  The only thing Google is doing that's on shaky ground is the redistribution.  The searching and snippeting is not (permission is sought and gained for every webpage) since snippeting is covered under fair use already.  If you shut down Google's redistributing practices (the displaying of cached webpages) the internet and indeed Google's role in it with the search capability they provide would carry on without a ripple.  

Snippeting a copy of a work you have permission to possess is not the same as redistributing the entire work. They are apples and oranges.  Just because Google is doing both does not mean that they are interchangeable or that one necessitates the other.

I think we can both agree that what Google is doing is good for the free flow of information

In their web search yes.  Since they get permission to make the copies they search.

, and that the same free flow can, and should, be applied to books (with the exception of redistributing them in their entirety, of course).

Nope.  Once Google is granted permission to make copies of books for which they have not gained permission what keeps you or me from doing the same?  Lets say that, like Google, I'd like to have a copy of a book from a library but I don't feel like paying for it or getting permission from the author to make a copy.  So I check it out, take it to my home copier, and copy it.  I then put my new copy on my shelf and return the book to the library. This is obviously not OK for me to do, so why is it OK for Google to do?

[Skar]

And on the mechanics of web searching...


That last one is particularly important, I think, in this discussion.  60 percent of all books are for the most part, unavailable to almost all of the population.  To me, that is a tragedy.  But a tragedy that Google has proposed a solution to, and I think we shouldn’t use old laws and technicalities to prevent the solution from being implemented.

That is, of course, all personal opinion.

This is just a discourse on why it would be neat if Google could index and make searchable all those books.  I agree, it would be neat.  Heck, I drool just thinking about it.  It would be AWESOME.  But it's not worth dumping everything out there into the public domain though.  And once you make it legal for Google to make copies of books they don't own you make it legal for everyone to do it, since everyone is equal in the eyes of the law.

Now, here's another solution.  If the Library of Congress, a government institution that owns legal copies of a great many books or any of the great libraries, or all the libraries, were to contract Google to index their books we'd have a whole 'nother kettle of fish because the owners of the books would, technically, be the ones indexing, searching, and snippeting, all activities provided for under fair use for the owners of the books.  The owners would still be the only ones with copies, Google would not be making money from stolen goods and we'd be getting index access to all those books.

Right there is an example of why it's not "old laws and technicalities" preventing this from happening.  It's Google's refusal to work within the law.

[Entsuropi]

Why are you people still argueing? :s

[Skar]

What's wrong with arguing?  

[Firemeboy]

Wow.  I think we're making progress.  Not in convincing the other person, but in understanding each other's point of view.  I have just a few more questions.

And this is patently untrue.  The only thing Google is doing that's on shaky ground is the redistribution.  The searching and snippeting is not (permission is sought and gained for every webpage) since snippeting is covered under fair use already.  If you shut down Google's redistributing practices (the displaying of cached webpages) the internet and indeed Google's role in it with the search capability they provide would carry on without a ripple.

I love the phrase, 'patently untrue', by the way.

So, you say you are uncomfortable with Google redistribution.  This would pretty much shut down Internetarchive.com, but that's another topic.  You are, however, OK with Google making a copy, storing it, and displaying snippets, right?  

So you are saying this is OK to do with copyrighted material online, only because the mechanism used to display pages make copying pages necessary?  And it doesn't apply to books because authors never agreed to allow somebody to make a copy to read it?  

If so, I think I understand where  you are coming from, but I'm pretty sure copyright laws don't delineates it in this way, and just because I put something on the web doesn't mean folks can make copies of it (other than caching).  And I also would never suggest that Google should not be forced to stop making and redistributing their copies.  

I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives.  It is my opinion that authors will not lose rights or money, in fact for the most part they and their publishers will benefit from this project.  With 60 percent of books out of the hands of the public, and since we have the technology to change that, I think it is our moral responsibility to do so.

I'd love to see all of the authors, who no longer see money from their books (because they are out of print, hook up with lulu.com and actually see profits again.  People would find their books using Google print, find an interest, and then buy and print the book from lulu.  

Again, I'm not trying to change your opinion, just telling you what mine is and the reasons for it.

It would be AWESOME.  But it's not worth dumping everything out there into the public domain though.  And once you make it legal for Google to make copies of books they don't own you make it legal for everyone to do it, since everyone is equal in the eyes of the law.

I have never supported dumping everything into the public domain.  I do think that copying and displaying snippets should fall within Fair Use, because the damage to authors would be non-existant, and we would get information out to folks who might benefit from it.

[Skar]

So you are saying this is OK to do with copyrighted material online, only because the mechanism used to display pages make copying pages necessary?

 

Close.  I think it's OK because the mechanism used to display pages doesn't work unless you have permission to copy.  If you don't have permission you get an error or a "you are not authorized to view this page" message.  The person posting the webpage explicitly gives you permission to make a copy of it by telling his computer to do so.  The computer is essentially acting as his agent.  The computer doesn't give permission for copies to be made unless the user/author tells it to. Thus the author gives permission for the copies of his webpage made by the browsing public.

And it doesn't apply to books because authors never agreed to allow somebody to make a copy to read it?

And it doesn't apply to books because the authors never agreed to let someone make a copy of it (without paying for it) period.

...and just because I put something on the web doesn't mean folks can make copies of it (other than caching

Caching is all that's needed and all that Google does to enable its search.

It is my opinion that authors will not lose rights...

Once it's made legal for Google to copy works they don't own what stops everybody else from copying works that they don't own?

I'd love to see all of the authors, who no longer see money from their books (because they are out of print, hook up with lulu.com and actually see profits again.

Ditto.

People would find their books using Google print, find an interest, and then buy and print the book from lulu.

If it's determined that it is legal for Google to copy books they don't own it becomes legal for people to simply copy the books THEY don't own instead of buying them from Lulu.  

Google can still copy all those books without making it legal for others to copy books they don't own.   All they need to do is become contractually obligated to the libraries to act as their agent.  So that the libraries still own and exercise control over the copies in Google's database.  And since the libraries still own the books Google will have to arrange for the profit they want to make to come through the libraries first.  Whether the libraries just sign away all profit to Google or they get a cut for profits related to their books (like Google's Publisher program only for libraries) it doesn't matter.  If the library retains ownership of the book, contractually and effectively, Google can perform the print project and copyright can stay intact as it stands today.

[Firemeboy]

Once it's made legal for Google to copy works they don't own what stops everybody else from copying works that they don't own?

 Well, one can aruge that they are doing it under Fair Use.  A professor can copy a chapter out of a book, and distribute it to his/her class under the teach act.  If Google is allowed to do this, it's not suddenly an 'open season' for copying books and distributing them.  Remember, Google is only displaying snippets.

All they need to do is become contractually obligated to the libraries to act as their agent.  So that the libraries still own and exercise control over the copies in Google's database.  And since the libraries still own the books Google will have to arrange for the profit they want to make to come through the libraries first.  Whether the libraries just sign away all profit to Google or they get a cut for profits related to their books (like Google's Publisher program only for libraries) it doesn't matter.  If the library retains ownership of the book, contractually and effectively, Google can perform the print project and copyright can stay intact as it stands today.

Wait, to clarify, are you saying if Google if Google were to buy a copy of a book, they could copy it in digital format, and allow others to 'search' through it?