Google's Print Project

[Firemeboy]

if a major company--such as Google--were to suddenly start using a picture I had drawn or a story I had made--and slapped that on their website and started making lots of money off it, you can be darn sure I would at least look into the legal aspect to see if that money couldn't be going to me--the maker--rather than Google--the stealer.

 Parker, this is exactly what Google does.  This is their whole business model.  You can go to google images and find all sorts of images that other people own the copyright to.  They point you to the original source, but they still have copies of those images in their database and they make money off advertising because so many people use their site.  They do the same thing with their basic search engine, their news site, the 15 or 20 other searches.  

[Parker]

It seems to me--and again, I'm not a technical whiz kid, so I may be wrong--that Google doesn't do what you're saying.  On their image search, they provide links to images on the web that other people have allowed them access to.  Aren't there ways for websites to opt out of Google?  Even if there aren't, I still don't think it's a fair comparison that you're making.

As I see it, what Google does is find information that is available for free on the web, and point users to that information in a quicker, more efficient manner.  The sites they show you are sites that you could get to for free on your own if you had the address, etc.  What they DON'T get you to is to things you would have to pay to access.  Archives of many newspapers, subscription services, magazines, etc.  I can't find Consumer Reports articles on Google--because I would have to pay to get them.

What Google is now trying to do is provide access to places that people normally have to pay to own copies of.  At least that's what people are afraid of.  If you can recreate the book without paying for it, then VOOM--someone's livelihood's in danger.

That seems like a difference to me--an important one.  But maybe I'm wrong.

[The Jade Knight]

EFF on the matter:

San Francisco, CA - The Authors Guild filed a class-action copyright infringement suit Tuesday against Google over its Google Print library project.  Working with major university libraries, Google Print aims to make thousands of books searchable via the Web, allowing people to search for key words or phrases in books.  The public may browse the full text of public domain materials in the process of such a search, but only a few sentences of text around the search term in books still covered by copyright.

EFF applauds Google's effort to create the digital equivalent of a library card catalog and believes the company has a strong case.

"Just as libraries don't need to pay publishers when they create a card catalog, neither should Google or other search engines be required to when they create an improved digital equivalent," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann.

In defending the lawsuit, Google is relying on the copyright principle of fair use, which allows the public to copy works without having to ask permission or pay licensing fees to copyright holders.  EFF believes Google is likely to prevail on its defense. One key point in Google's favor is that Google Print is a transformative use of these books - the company is creating a virtual card catalog to assist people in finding relevant books, rather than creating replacements for the books themselves.

In addition, it is almost certain that Google Print will boost, rather than hurt, the market for the copyrighted books.  "It's easy to see how Google Print can stimulate demand for books that otherwise would lay undiscovered in library stacks," said von Lohmann.  "It's hard to see how it could hurt publishers or authors."

For additional legal analysis, EFF recommends "The Google Print Library Project: A Copyright Analysis," a recently published white paper by noted Washington, DC, copyright attorney Jonathan Band of Policy Bandwidth.

["Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged."]

Another comment on this issue may be found here:
http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/2005/09/another_inept_p.html
[mild language warning]

[stacer]

But if I could ask a question along a similar vein, assume you have edited a book, and published it, and it's made money for you, the publisher, and the author, and then it goes out of print.  The author dies and it's now 15 years after his death.  Can't you also argue that since the information contained in that book is no longer valuable enough to warrant another printing, but might be valuable enough to digitize and put online?  If the books is just sitting there, and nobody has access to it, wouldn't it be a good thing to get that information back out where a few people might benefit from it?

Fifteen years? No. That author's children or relatives still should have a right to bring the books back into print within the copyright time period, such as how Christopher Tolkien has control of the Tolkien estate. Fifteen years is not long enough. A book can sometimes go out of print for thirty years and then be rediscovered by a new generation and make a killing in a new reprint when it's rediscovered. The family has a right to benefit from this as the heirs to the estate. Now, if you said seventy years later, then I'd agree. Or even fifty if there were nobody left of the author's family, but that's usually not the case.

I am not advocating removing copyright law, but I think that parts of it could be changed given new technology.  Mickey Mouse is still being actively used by Disney to make money.  They created it.  Why should the have to put it in the public domain?  Let them pay a small fee and extend the life that specific copyright.  But let other work, VAST amounts of work, that is fifty, seventy-five, a hundred years old, go into the public domain.  If there are 18 copies of a book somewhere, and the author doesn't care (or can't be found), why keep that information locked up?

It's usually not locked up. It's accessible by scholars who know how to find it. And yes, there should be exceptions for long-term copyright issues such as Mickey Mouse where a company is still actively making money off the trademark name as well as the copyrighted material from 80 years ago. You're right, all copyrights don't need to be extended every time Mickey Mouse's is.

However, I still agree with a seventy-year limit which is allowed by law. Books that are 100 years old are already in the public domain, so that's moot. Fifty years old is where it gets tricky, and that's the whole reason why there was the big battle over Mickey Mouse. Heck, The Hobbit is what, sixty years old, right? Tolkien's family still benefits from the sales of that book, as well as the sales of Lord of the Rings, which is, by comparison, a mere 40 or 45 years old (I think it was originally published in the mid-sixties, but I could be wrong). Would it change anything if it were available in the public domain? I don't think it would. But he's still got heirs willing to control it and I think that changes everything.

I don't know copyright law very well, honestly. But what I do know of it as it relates to print mostly makes sense to me. It's there as a protection. So what if you can't find the author? Perhaps that author is living a quiet life in Patagonia, perfectly happy with the state of his or her book forty-five years later. Or perhaps he or she is planning for a comeback reprinting next year. Do you have more right than that inaccessible author to that author's work?

So can I ask you the same question?  Is what google and yahoo and archive.org doing currently online also illegal?  The fact that they make copies of things on the Internet, store them on their database, and then display parts of them (or in archive.org's case, the entire document) also illegal?

Like I've already said, apples to oranges. Parker pretty much summed up my answer to that. There is a difference there, and it's an important one. And in the case of Google allowing access to cached pages of pay sites--yes, it's illegal.

[Firemeboy]

Parker...

On their image search, they provide links to images on the web that other people have allowed them access to.  Aren't there ways for websites to opt out of Google?

 There is a way to opt out, you just have to ask.  And it is an important difference, as you point out, however, regarding their linking, I read on several sites that were talking about this lawsuit and they spefically mentioned that Google replicates the images or documents and stores them in their databases.  Archive.org certainly does that.

[Firemeboy]

Stacer,

Fifteen years? No. That author's children or relatives still should have a right to bring the books back into print within the copyright time period, such as how Christopher Tolkien has control of the Tolkien estate. Fifteen years is not long enough.

 I know that right now it's much longer than 15 years, and there are certainly instances where a book lies undiscovered, then makes a revival and is 'rediscovered'.  But I bet this is by far a very rare exception rather than the rule.  And I think it's too bad we have 5000 or more books just sitting there to every one book that makes money again for an author or his family.  They just hang out until they are in the public domain.  Why not get some mileage out of them before then?

Like I've already said, apples to oranges.

  I guess I have to disagree with you here.  I don't think the law differentiates between what you write and post online, and what you write and publish, or put in the trash can.  Either one is copyrighted by you, and can not be copied without your express written permission, or 75 years (or something I'm not sure) after you're dead.

I think that's overkill.  

I wonder if the whole thing could be solved by requiring authors to 'renew' their copyright.  Every 10 years, if you want your books to keep out of the public domain, you have to pay $10 or something.  That way we could find all the books that authors and publishers just don't care about, and those that somebody has a hope to 'bring back'.

It's accessible by scholars who know how to find it.

 And I guess my opinion is that I think it's a shame that it's only the scholars who can benefit from it.  Or those that happen to live within traveling distance of a library when the internet could get it to everybody.

[Parker]

I think the point we keep coming back to is that the way to opt out is lame.  Have Google send a letter to every author or publishing house, informing them of the situation and what they plan to do, and then have that letter include a SASE that let's the author or house convey his/her/their wishes--and THEN maybe it's a bit on the less-lame side.

I have to say that I feel like I'm being put into a position that I'm not arguing.  I've already said that I have ambivalent feelings on the subject.  I don't think this is an "either Google is evil or it's God's gift to technology" debate.  There is a middle ground.  Sure, everything I write is technically protected by copyright--but it's my understanding that I have to do something to protect that copyright when it is infringed, or else I lose it.  If Disney didn't protect Mickey as much as they do, they would lose their sole right to use him, or so I have been told.  (Again, I'm not a lawyer, so I might be wrong.)

I think the thing is that for the most of things online, people just don't care about protecting their copyright to that stuff.  They don't do anything to protect it, etc.  I certainly am not arguing that copyright should be enforced on everything--and I don't think it is.  But what I AM arguing is that when something starts to matter--when it starts to make serious money or provide a living for a person or persons--then copyright is a great thing.  Enforce away.  And I agree with Stacer--just because something's not popular now doesn't mean that it won't be soon, which in turn doesn't mean that we should breach the copyright.

I'm all for Google's idea.  As long as it is done legally and respectfully--and as long as it doesn't result in a bunch of illegal copies of copyright books floating around online.  Firemeboy, can you honestly say that you wouldn't get in a huff if Google's plan went into action, your book was indexed without your knowing, and then someone managed to make a complete ecopy of the sucker, post it online, and your book took off like a skyrocket, being read by thousands and thousands of people, but no one actually paying any money to you the creator of it?  I know that's an extreme situation.  I know that you could argue that you would then have better name recognition and could then use that to write an even better book (which might then also be stolen).  You could also argue that many people would want a print copy of your book--but the fact would remain that the work that could have made you x amount of dollars--and your publisher et. al.--didn't make its potential because it got pirated.

Now compare that to how you would feel if I quoted your last statement and put it on my (nonexistent) website and claimed it was my own thoughts.  No one reads it, no one cares, and you probably wouldn't either.  I for one don't care if people quote what I write here and claim it as their own.  That just means they agree with me.

I see a big difference in the two situations.  Maybe you don't.  That's fine, too.  But I think this is a case where those people who care about keeping copyrights the way they are trump the people who want to open them up to all.  The ones who don't care can go ahead and not enforce their copyrights.  But the ones who do care deserve to be protected by the terms that existed when they created whatever they created.

And that's all I have to say about that.  --Forrest Gump--

[The Jade Knight]

Firemeboy, can you honestly say that you wouldn't get in a huff if Google's plan went into action, your book was indexed without your knowing, and then someone managed to make a complete ecopy of the sucker, post it online, and your book took off like a skyrocket, being read by thousands and thousands of people, but no one actually paying any money to you the creator of it?

No offense, but that's a moronic example.  Someone could already do that with any book in a public library, and it would be just as legal (or illegal), and probably just as easy.

The real question here is how does what Google's doing differ in terms of how it harms the artist, any more than what a library already does.

the fact would remain that the work that could have made you x amount of dollars--and your publisher et. al.--didn't make its potential because it got pirated.

That's the fiction of it, not the fact.  There have been more than one study done showing that online pre-release of movies and TV series regularly boosts sales.  While this may be different for works in print (and I've never read anything that makes me believe it is any different), there's no "that's the fact about it" at all.

how you would feel if I quoted your last statement and put it on my (nonexistent) website and claimed it was my own thoughts.  

That's plagiarism, not copyright infringement.  They're two different things.


Re: copyright in general, I've already posted a list of pros and cons of STRONG copyright laws (vs. just "ordinary" or "old-fashioned" copyright laws).  Currently the cons vastly outnumber the pros.  Tell me if I've left anything off.

Again, I think Google's done a poor job of handling this, but they may well be within their "fair use" rights, especially considering what they already do.  It's a service I'd like to see, even if they were stupid about it.

And for all you who say you don't know much about copyright law, please, educate yourself on some of the history and very basics:
http://lessig.org/freeculture/free.html
It's just a video presentation.

[Firemeboy]

Have Google send a letter to every author or publishing house, informing them of the situation and what they plan to do, and then have that letter include a SASE that let's the author or house convey his/her/their wishes--and THEN maybe it's a bit on the less-lame side.

 The analogy has been given that it's like announcing you are going to rob a house, and you can 'opt out' of the robbery if you want.  But another analogy is that you have a right to privacy, but the phone company is going to put your name in the book unless you take the initiative and opt out.  In my opinion (and I know others feel differently), it's less work for an author to opt out than for Google to do what you are suggesting.

Firemeboy, can you honestly say that you wouldn't get in a huff if Google's plan went into action

 Absolutely not.  In fact, if I still owned the rights, I'd put my book in the public domain tonight.  But it doesn't matter what I think, because we do have laws.  I think those laws need to be changed to make more sense, and then those laws need to be obeyed.

Now compare that to how you would feel if I quoted your last statement and put it on my (nonexistent) website and claimed it was my own thoughts.  No one reads it, no one cares, and you probably wouldn't either.

 Again, it doesn't matter what I think.  You can't break the law.  Though you do make a good point.  Copyright infringement is happening all the time, but you don't see lawsuits unless the person committing the foul has deep pockets.

[Parker]

Jade,

It seems to me that if someone were to write a program to hack Google's proposed project, such a program could easily and automatically make e-copies of as many books as possible before they were caught.  This seems easier to me than going to a library, checking the book out, and scanning page after page--essentially what Google is doing now.

How is it a moronic example?  Libraries DON'T do this.  Libraries help authors--they don't harm them.  Libraries purchase a legal copy and allow members of that library to read it, one at a time, legally.  They don't go around photocopying books to make multiple copies, or scanning books to make e-copies (although they are starting to do that--I read an article on it on CNN, but I unfortunately can't find the link).  In any case, they don't do anything illegal.  Scanning the book and passing it out for free on the web would be just that.

Again, I'm not harping on what Google's doing--I'm just saying people should be cautious with what they are doing.

Please show me the studies you cite.  I'd be interested to see them and see how the research was done, conclusions made, etc.  It seems counterintuitive to me, and until I can see some actual digits, I'll be skeptical of the claim that releasing pirated copies of a work makes more money for the creators of said work.  Looking at your statement, I think I might be misunderstanding what you're saying.  What do you mean when you say "online prerelease"?

On the plagiarism side, it seemed to me that Firemeboy was trying to argue that anything written by anyone was protected by copyright and cannot be used without their permission.  My example--which was one of plagiarism--was intended to show why (if what Firemeboy was claiming copyright was supposed to do) it wasn't enforced.  There have been lawsuits brought to court over plagiarism/copyright infringement.  Aren't they just different aspects of the same thing?

Bottom line on this one for me is that I wish people in this thread would stop feeling the urge to put posters into black/white positions.  (I'm probably already guilty of this, too--but I've been trying not to be.)  I'm a staunch supporter of the gray here, and while some of my examples may be able to be picked apart, I haven't been writing a perfect example of a logical argument or anything--I just want to get my general ideas across.

[Firemeboy]

It's always good to support the grey.  I support the grey, but I suspect a different shade of grey than others.  

This seems easier to me than going to a library, checking the book out, and scanning page after page--essentially what Google is doing now.

 Surprising enough, there is a growing list of authors who are making their material available for free on the internet.  The do this because nobody (well, very few) really wants to read a whole book online.  You can't read a book online while taking a bath, riding in the car, waiting for the bus.  Sure, some folks are tech savy enough, but most want the real thing.  

Firemeboy was trying to argue that anything written by anyone was protected by copyright and cannot be used without their permission.

 I am claiming this because it's law.  If I were to copy your entire post, and paste it to my word document, and print it off and pass it out, even if I attribute the work to you, I am in violation of copyright.  I'm breaking the law.  I need your express written permission before I can do that.  That is why I'm arguing that the laws need to be looked at, and changed to something more realistic.  

By the way, this is also why creative commons came about, so that people who feel that the copyright laws are a little silly can basically put their work in the public domain, or some modified version, other than a full copyright.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I did answer your question. If you read my posts instead of skimming them (as you have specifically said you did), you would see this.

You can opt out of google. WITHOUT contacting them first. You can insert the code into your web page at the time of creation. I think it's fair to say that anyone making a web page as a better than reasonable chance to know about google. If they don't like it, they can search up how to opt out. I don't know why they would, but they can. I would assume you can do the same with archive.org, but since it doesn't bother me, I've not researched it.

Again, "opting out" of a project you have a less than reasonable chance of knowing about (and while the list of web-savvy authors is growing, I would still put a brand new project by Google on the list of things most print authors don't immediately learn about). The authors should be contacted prior to the copy of their copy being made. Anyone who chooses not to, doesn't respond, or asks for more compensation than Google is willing to give should be left out. That is there right.

There are two other cases of making copies that have been brought up (I don't regard people checking out a book making new copies -- even remotely, the law I believe is fair doesn't prohibit number of readings, just copies; an individual can re-read his copy of a book as many times as he likes, even loan it, as long as he's not making a copy and selling it). One is photocopying an entire book. This rarely happens, because it's so time consuming and generally speaking the cost of photocopying becomes higher than buying another copy. However, in cases where a book is copied, it's still illegal. The other copies mentioned are the "cache" in web browsers. If this were a common problem it would be dealt with, as it has been. you used to be able to pull a copy of the flash files of any flash you viewed and save it -- something a lot of people did with flash games. However, they put measures in place to prevent this ease of copying. It's not perfect, and not everyone uses it, but it's there. If the problem were more widespread, I would expect, and support, legal action against Mozilla and Microsoft (and probably Opera, and Apple) if they didn't agree to at least protect the cache better, if not remove it altogether.

Maybe this online thing will not turn out to be a problem, but this sort of thing cannot be demonstrated at this point, and writers have a right to have their material protected, without having to, by pure chance, find out about it and then contact the company.

I asked you to define how you want to change it. As Jefferson said, it is often more dangerous to act than to wait. I certainly cannot (ethically) remotely support an initiative that is not defined.

NOw, you've started to define it, but you've put forth several ideas and not codified them. Which are you advocating?

[Firemeboy]

I think it's fair to say that anyone making a web page as a better than reasonable chance to know about google.  If they don't like it, they can search up how to opt out.

 What is the difference between authors having to research and do a physical action to opt out of what they write and post online, and what they write and publish?  Sure, they didn't have to do it in the past, but I think we can all agree that technology has changed.  We change with it.  To hold to old laws when new technology emerges is silly.

It seems to me that you are arguing against yourself.  You say:

I would assume you can do the same with archive.org, but since it doesn't bother me, I've not researched it.

 You don't know what they do, it doesn't bother you, so it's no big deal.  But then you say:

The authors should be contacted prior to the copy of their copy being made.

 So should archive.org contact them?  Yahoo?  archive? MSN?  Alta Vista?  Hotbot? Lycos?  There are hundreds of serach engines, to me that seems overkill for both the engines and the authors.

NOw, you've started to define it, but you've put forth several ideas and not codified them. Which are you advocating?

 That is a fair question.  I would like to see a way in which the needs of authors and publishers to make money, is balanced with what I see is a moral obligation to help people better their lives.  We all know the 'give a man a fish vs. teach a man to fish' ideology, and we now have the opportunity to literally flood the globe with information that could help folks out.  Let the Tolkien estate make money for as long as they want, but let old edition textbooks, books long forgotten, and useful information get out there.

That is probably not as codified as you want.  If you would really like a nice framework, it's going to take me a while...

Let me ask you a question e, do you think it's our moral obligation to give assistance to a fellow human being, if we can give that assistance without doing harm to ourselves?  I'm not talking about being forced to pay taxes to support welfare, or that government should make helping others obligatory.  I'm asking if you yourself think it's our moral oligation to help others.

That's not a trick quetsion.  

[Skar]

The fundamental difference between what Google is doing and libraries and webpages (which they search and index) is the choice given to the copyright owner.

Libraries:
Any given author or publishing house (relevance depending on who owns the copyright) makes the conscious choice to sell to a library.  They know what libraries do and consciously choose to permit it.  Google is short-circuiting that choice.

The authors and publishers who chose to sell to libraries did not choose to sell to Google. Google didn't even give them a chance to sell to them.  Google is just taking their work and profiting from it without compensating them.  I as an author would probably choose to sell or even give a copy of my book to Google because of the beneifit it would provide me, same reason I'd sell to a library.  But they're not offering me that choice.  They're just taking the work.  That's theft.  Not allowed.  Should be stopped and punished.

Internet:
Anyone who publishes on the internet is expecting people to access their work and read it and it is expected that the  people who do so are making a copy of the site on their machine and reading that.  It's part of the deal.  Google's indexing of the web is accomplished by their being exactly like any other user.  They do more with their cache than most other users but no more than any other user could if they chose to.

Making (and cacheing) a digital copy of a print book is entirely different.  It is specifically fobidden.  The authors and publishers, expect that it won't be done.  Not like the internet at all. Again, Google is just taking.  

Several people have made the point that it would be great to have free access to books that were out of print for reasons ranging from "it would really help the poor people of the world" in the case of a text on irrigation to "I really wish I could get my hands on my favorite obscure author."

Heartwrenching.  The problem with both those cases is that the work in question would not have been produced if the author or publisher didn't expect to make money from their efforts.  If we were to change copyright law to the point where Google (and therefore anyone else) could make digital copies of anything they wanted and publishers could be forced to distribute their copyrighted property for free, even if it was "to help the poor people(sob)" Innovation and the production of new works would die.  If copyright, ergo the right to private control of private property, had never existed most of the nifty things people so desperately want to share with the poor and enjoy for themselves would not be around today.  The authors would not have bothered to produce the work.

For an example of exactly this effect in operation in the real world compare the sheer volume of innovation, brilliance, and new work that came out of the United States from 1917 to the 1990s with what came out of the Soviet Union during the same time period.

The ability to profit from your own work is the prime motivator for nearly everything new.  Whether the profit comes in the form of royalties or continued employment at a University, the cause and effect is the same.

There would be no problem here if Google had asked people to opt in instead of telling them they have to opt out with copyrighted works.  If they really wanted to index copyrighted works there's an easy solution.  They could have paid the authors or estates for a single copy and then indexed that.  If they were unable through obscurity or the inability to pay for the search to locate an author or an estate they could put payment for each and every book in question into a holding account and pay the people the people in question (the ones they couldn't find) when they presented themselves with their request.  If no one comes forward before the copyright runs out, the money and all its interest goes back into their coffers.  This is, of course, assuming that the publishers and authors trust Google to not let their copyrighted material be copied and illegally distributed.  Off the top of my head I can think of three or four methods for extracting an entire work from a snippet search using fairly simple scripting but...I, for one, think that of all the outfits out there Google is the one most likely to be able to find a way to keep that from happening.

</ramble>

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

 What is the difference between authors having to research and do a physical action to opt out of what they write and post online, and what they write and publish?  Sure, they didn't have to do it in the past, but I think we can all agree that technology has changed.  We change with it.  To hold to old laws when new technology emerges is silly.

The difference is whether you can opt out without having to contact them. You can do it up front. No one has to look it up, there's no paperwork to be filed. End of story. This, I believe, answers the contradiction you think you see.

Let me ask you a question e, do you think it's our moral obligation to give assistance to a fellow human being, if we can give that assistance without doing harm to ourselves?  I'm not talking about being forced to pay taxes to support welfare, or that government should make helping others obligatory.  I'm asking if you yourself think it's our moral oligation to help others.

Yes, I do. I believe that if I have spare resources and I have a way to dispose of those resources in a way that will help others less fortunate, that I have a stewardship to help them.

I also, however, believe in the sacredness of personal property. If someone chooses not to help others, for whatever reason, they are not legally obligated to do so (I speak in absolutes, but I can think of exceptions -- community service is a good sentence for some criminal acts, for example). Especially since there are different understandings of what that moral law is, or whether certain charities deserve it (There are pro-abortion organizations, for example, that are considered charities, or state sponsored religions in some countries, and I find it a violation of my basic civil rights, and my morality, were I forced to donate resources to such an organization.

So yes, I donate. I pay my tithing first. I try to be as generous as possible with fast offerings, I try to lend my physical service for needed labor and give to others. I'm not as good with this as I believe I should be, but there are lots of things I need to improve, and I'm doing better.

And skar, it's amazing when we find our opinions coinciding, but here they do.
My biggest problem with what Google is that there was never even an ATTEMPT to contact copyright holders. The result of what they're doing will be very cool indeed. I just don't want them to weaken our basic constitutional and legal rights while they do it.