Photographers Want Their Cut From Google's Ebooks 240
It's not just the writers anymore: carluva writes "The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) and several other visual artist groups are suing Google over its digitization of of millions of books, claiming copyright infringement related to images within the books. The photographers initially wanted to be included in the authors' and publishers' class action suit, but filed their own suit after that request was denied. Google and others assert that images are only included in the digital copies when permission has been obtained from the copyright holder."
Photographs (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a newspaper photographer. I'll offer this perspective on Google's respect for copyright:
Google recently used some of my photographs on Google News, as the 'headline' photos to represent collected coverage of major stories. This fell outside any reasonable definition of fair use. This was for-profit publication of photographs that other publishers were paying for the right to use. Google used them for free.
Now, it's common in the news business that publishers use breaking news photos without permission, because they need to publish them quickly. But they ALWAYS pay afterwards, market rate, without question. This side of the business works on trust.
When I sent Google a bill, their first reaction was exactly what it should be: They would pay the market rate. They rang up to get my banking details for fund transfer, and that should have been the end of the matter.
Then they wrote to me saying that they wouldn't pay. They even denied publishing the images, which was clearly untrue. They told me that to take the matter further I would need to file a DMCA complaint -- and in doing so I must give Google permission to publish the DMCA complaint online. I believe this is outrageous! I only sell my pictures to UK publishers, yet here was a US company publishing my work without permission, and telling me that I would need to pursue them through the US legal system!
This gives me a fairly clear view of Google's attitude to other people's copyright. It seems that Google will take what they want, publish it however they want, profit, and then to hell with the people who originally produced the material in question.
Re:Stupid laws (Score:2, Interesting)
No, the problem is that Google thinks it can just violate the copyrights of people who have contributed to the books they scanned. And even more ridiculous is they think they can set up an opt-out system in order to negate these copyrights.
Imagine the uproar if a GPLed program had its codebase relicensed and did so without the consent of all the copyright holders. Then after getting in trouble, they still continued with the relicensing effort and the only way you could assert your rights was through their opt-out system that any number of copyright holders may not even know about. Do you not see the problem with that?
Re:Photographs (Score:5, Interesting)
What property? (Score:2, Interesting)
> An system that can take your property and requires you to "opt out" rather than opt in deserves to have as many law suits thrown at it as humanly possible.
Well, I don't believe that IP is property, so I'll have to disagree with you there. There's no way to drag books online (which is where they need to be to be useful) except to do this wholesale, and I'm sorry, but I don't care about the estates of long-dead artists who are out to get another buck or two. Hell, they'd make money if only they signed on to this, but the lawyers wouldn't make as much by not suing, so go figure.
Anyhow, any book that doesn't get digitized will fall into much-deserved obscurity soon enough. I wish they'd make sane copyright laws so that anyone (not just Google) could do this, but that's not going to happen any time soon, so I guess I'll disagree with you and say that I'm glad we're finally getting a digital library.
If authors want to stand in the way of progress, they shouldn't complain about getting run over by it. Nobody cries for the buggy whip makers.
Re:Me too (Score:3, Interesting)
As much as I initially hated their methods, I can't say I'm completely against it now, having used it a bit.
It's a small glimpse of what a sane copyright policy might allow. Yes, it's a fucked up walled garden, but even the equivalent of a Disney park ride take on what reasonable copyright policy might look like is exciting. It's possible it's the only time I'll see something like that in my lifetime, if it gets shut down and the idea doesn't spread.