Google Found Guilty of French Copyright Infringement 254
adeelarshad82 writes "A Paris court on Friday found Google guilty of violating copyright by digitizing books and putting extracts online, following a legal challenge by major French publishers. The court found against Google after the La Martiniere group, which controls the highbrow Editions du Seuil publishing house, argued that publishers and authors were losing out in the latest stage of the digital revolution."
LMAO this is BS (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Still better than the CRIA (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
I cannot believe that google extracts are in any way damaging book sales, and therefore causing harm to the authors or publishers.
So what are they complaining about?
Really impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
French publishers have bit the hand that feeds them. The obvious solution is for Google to no longer digitize French books, and laugh as people buy less of them.
Re:Still better than the CRIA (Score:3, Insightful)
I cannot help but smile at the karmic deliciousness of a "RIA" organization being sued for billions for infringement.
Re:Yeah, but it's France.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Except that before Napoleon even shared a border with Russia, he had to own most of Europe. I can see how the geographical details might be lost on Americans, though.
Re:Really impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
2) From what I have heard, the country French are a very hospitable people, warm and willing to share their culture with the world. It is really only the Parisians that have a (deserved) reputation for being arrogant. Unfortunately, Paris is the only part of France that most people ever visit.
3) The Quebecois have earned some degree of disrespect since their insistence on the use of French goes far beyond "bi-lingualism" and may be regarded by some as discriminating against the majority English-speaking Canadians.
In general, France was once a big global superpower; France was once the center for tecnology, and French was the "Lingua Franca" used in diplomacy throughout the world. The French appear more than a little pissed off that this is no longer true. However, this just gives us a preview of the kind of attitude we will be getting from the Americans in a few years when China becomes the economic and technological center of the world. If you thought the French were acting like arrogant assholes before, just wait 'til you see what the Americans act like!
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
The effectiveness of a particular promotional channel is irrelevant if the act itself is illegal.
Re:LMAO this is BS (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yup (Score:4, Insightful)
The US does deserve the honor of creating a very good form of government, way back in the late 1700s when Europe was still under the rule of monarchs. Sure, these days every decent country has some sort of Constitutional Republic, but back then it was a downright revolutionary concept. Even better, our form of government has survived ever since the ratification of the Constitution in the 1780s. Most other industrialized nations can't claim to have a form of government that's lasted as long and been so stable; they've all been interrupted by dictatorships (Spain, Germany, Italy), occupations by invaders (Poland, France, Belgium), had a complete change of government (Japan, China), etc. The closest would probably be Great Britain, which instead of some big unheaval like those others, slowly morphed from an absolute monarchy, to a monarchy with a Parliament, to a Parliamentary democracy with a monarch that's nothing but a figurehead.
Unfortunately, while what the USA's founders created was revolutionary and great, 230+ years of time and massive expansion and all kinds of social changes and upheavals have corrupted it greatly, and now it's not working so well and appears to be utterly corrupt at most levels.
Re:Never said it was (Score:3, Insightful)
We could easily have done what the Russians did to Eastern Europe to Western Europe after WWII if we had wanted to.Or we could have absorbed Japan. Of any government that has held significant power at any time in the history of the world, the US has been the least abusive and most egalitarian.
surrender.... (Score:5, Insightful)
True, as the French surrendered (again) before we became fully engaged there. Prior to their (typical) surrender we helped back them in terms of money and troops. Yet even with the quagmire that sadly enough was Vietnam I don't think it's comparable to the poor choices that Nappy made back in the day...
Yeah, It's not like the USA had to haul ass out of Vietnam with it's tail between it's .... uh... oh wait it did.... If there is one thing we learned from Vietnam (at least the ones of us that haven't been brainwashed with an overdose of extreme right wing ideology) it's that not all problems on this earth can be solved with the lavish over-application of obscene amounts of firepower. Maybe one day you will wake up and realize that the world is not a Rambo movie.... and that line about the French and surrender is getting really old and very tired. You people seem to find it awful easy to forget that it was French money, French guns and French ships that picked your revolution up out of the N-American mud at a time when the British army was wiping the floor with George Washington and his continentals and eventually brought you your independence. At the end thousands of their soldiers and sailors proved instrumental in that process as well. Apparently French troops outnumbered the Americans at at their key victory, the famous siege of Siege of Yorktown.
Re:Really impressive (Score:4, Insightful)
1) It hard to "speak with people" who insist that everyone speak perfect French or be subject ridicule, especially when you don't speak French.
You mean like the numerous Americans and English who mock immigrants who don't speak perfect English even though the immigrant knows two or three languages and the native English speaker can only (if lucky) manage one?
Re:Never said it was (Score:3, Insightful)
You're talking ancient history there. The USA conducted itself fairly well back then (though its involvement in the Phillipines wasn't too pretty). Check out the USA's actions after WWII instead; they got worse and worse and worse. Vietnam, overthrowing Latin American governments and installing puppet dictatorships, overthrowing Iran's democratically-elected government and installing the Shah, etc. We're certainly not doing anything noble in Iraq right now.
It died long ago (Score:2, Insightful)
But I think the key issue may well be that we're stuck with a system that was at least adequate and maybe even ideal for a time that existed 230 years ago. Many of the principles were and are good, but the structure hasn't adapted to the modern world.
I think in many ways the British have it right. A system of government that grows, adapts and changes. Ours is fossilized.
Re:Make sense (Score:3, Insightful)
Democracy doesn't always produce the right answer, and not all laws are worthy of respect, or even legitimate.
Compare speed limits (respected but usually broken), Prohibition (not respected, usually broken), and Civil Rights laws (initially not respected, initially usually broken).
I'd say that usually the government should enact laws that conform with the stated wishes and actual behavior of its people. Sometimes it is good for the government to get in a fight with the people, such as the federal government forcing the South to desegregate, but more usually it is not a good idea, partially because the stakes are so much lower, such as when they banned alcohol.
Overall, I'd say that copyright is more like Prohibition than Civil Rights. While Prohibition was widely considered to be a good idea at the time, it was immediately ignored by pretty much everyone. The lawlessness that this engendered quickly spread, and soon the fact that people ignored the laws about drinking meant that there was a huge upswing in official corruption, in violence, and in organized crime.
If people want to do things which currently would be copyright infringement, I think we would be best off in legalizing this, rather than fighting it. Fighting it hasn't worked so far, and probably never will. But the collateral damage done by the disrespect people have for one law will spread into disrespect for other laws, and the damage done in combating it will be worse than the offenses committed (e.g. three strikes). This issue just isn't important enough for the government to defend; better to yield.
Plus, of course, there's simply no evidence whatsoever that any current copyright law is democratic in nature. For over a century, special interests have dominated the field, and Congress has passed whatever they've been told to pass. More recently, international treaties have been used to completely circumvent domestic political debate, so that ever-worsening laws can be presented as a fait accompli. See e.g. the ACTA treaty, the details of which are being kept secret, which will certainly be non-negotiable once the public and our democratic representatives have a chance to see it, and which will be tied to other important issues so that it is dragged into law not because it is popularly wanted, but because it is inseparable from things we do want (although I'd find that part doubtful too, really).
So don't blather on about democracy; it is absent here, and is likely to malfunction even if we did consult it.
It isn't good to break laws, since this can destabilize society, and it isn't good for society to have bad laws on the books. But which course of action we should take -- breaking it, or suffering from it -- depends on which would be better. Here's another example: The Fugitive Slave Act. I would not have hesitated to break that one; a society that has a law like that is in need of destabilization. We're not at that point with copyright, by any means, but it does remind us that just because something is a law, that doesn't mean we ought to obey it.
I like the idea of copyright, and I think we certainly ought to have copyright laws. But I hate our current copyright laws, and they're getting worse. Depending on who breaks them, and how, I may not have a problem with it, personally.
When we have good laws, we'll talk some more.
Re:Make sense (Score:3, Insightful)
But what the majority wants still isn't reason enough to allow any kind of behaviour.
I agree. It isn't good enough to live in a democracy; not only must the democracy be moderated, so that it doesn't devolve into mob rule, but there must also be protection for minorities, particularly unpopular minorities. Thus the example of the government finally living up to its obligations to protect the civil rights of black people, over the objections of many in the white majority.
Let's face the truth, what the majority wants is very commonly driven by selfish motives
Yes. For example, the majority selfishly wants more creative works to be written and published, and to be as unrestricted as possible, as soon as possible, with regard to what they can do with those works. That is the one and only reason to justify copyright; majority selfishness. Copyright isn't a civil liberty or anything, remember, it is an utterly utilitarian system for helping the public appease their greed for unrestricted works. Indeed, copyright runs directly counter to some of our most important civil liberties, and would be totally intolerable if it not only was state-sponsored censorship (which it is) but was also a bad deal (which it may be, but probably doesn't necessarily have to be).
We do need copyrights of some kind, as everyone should be rewarded when his work is used in any way.
No, we don't need copyrights; the best you can say about them is that we may be better off with copyrights, than without them. Nor should everyone "be rewarded when his work is used in any way." That's not a justification for copyright.
Again, copyrights not a right, they are utilitarian; they should only be granted, when and to the extent that, it benefits the public to do so. If the public is better off granting a copyright to an author, then let's do so. And if the public is better off not granting a copyright to an author, then let's do that. Likewise, the precise duration and amount of protection should be determined by what's best for the public, not what's best for, or desired by the author.
Global fundings of different types have been proposed many times, but were systematically rejected by the right wing, who argued it wouldn't be fair, and we couldn't measure in a realistic and effective way who should get what, and that those who don't use digital media would pay for nothing.
If you mean for everything, generally, I agree with the right wingers on this one (to my surprise). The genius of copyright is that authors who create popular works will get greater rewards than authors who create lousy works; the government doesn't have to directly put in a penny from the public coffers. Copyright isn't a reward, so much as it is a lens or funnel, which directs more of the money that can be made from the work to the copyright holder than he would get otherwise. Although do note that it imposes a transactional cost that can reduce the amount of money being made from a work as well. E.g. 'It's a Wonderful Life' only became popular once it was out of copyright, precisely because it was out of copyright, and thus cheap to air. Even the cost of getting permission, were it granted for free, would've been too much.
I don't mind the government running public museums. I don't mind the government providing some aid to the arts community, if only to keep certain art forms from practically dying out (opera is not a big profit center), or to keep artists employed at something they're good at (e.g. in the 30's, the WPA ran theaters to keep actors working, writing projects to keep authors working, etc.), or hiring artists to beautify public buildings and monuments (Beaux-Arts is nice, but pretty much everything since WW2 is total crap). But beyond this, I don't want the government getting involved in artistic decisions. And providing money without making artistic decisions is even worse, since it lets artists engage in fraud or at least misuse of funds, very easily.
Better to keep the government m