Frustrated Judge Pushes For Solution In Google Books Case 134
SpuriousLogic writes with this excerpt from a Reuters report:
"A Manhattan federal judge set a Sept. 15 deadline for Google, authors and publishers to come up with a legal plan to create the world's largest digital library, expressing frustration that the six-year-old dispute has not been resolved. At a hearing on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin said if the dispute is not 'resolved or close to resolved in principle' by mid-September, he will set a 'relatively tight schedule' for the parties to prepare for a possible trial. ... Citing antitrust and copyright concerns, Chin had on March 22 rejected a $125 million settlement. He said it went 'too far' in allowing Google to exploit digitized copyrighted works by selling subscriptions to them online and engaging in 'wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission.'"
So idiotic... (Score:2)
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The argument is about books out of copyright, not books in copyright.
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Wrong, the dispute is about alleged orphaned works, that is, in copyright, but someone claimed to not know how to reach the copyright holder to ask permission.
Fixed that for 'ya.
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That corruption occurs elsewhere doesn't make it any more palatable here.
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Read any book you'd want to?
Seriously, you did NOT just post that!!
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If it weren't for public libraries where would homeless perverts go to watch porn and jerk off?
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I'm glad brick and mortar libraries were set up before the modern era, because it would never happen today. I simply don't understand how an online library would be so horrible, when even small towns have libraries where you can read any book you'd want to.
Andrew Carnagie was willing to donate a building of approriate size ---
but only if you could convince him that you wanted a public library badly enough to see to it that it woulld be locally staffed and funded. Not permanently dependent on the charitable -- but often capricious and self-serving -- impulses of a single fabulously wealthy benefactor three thousand miles distant.
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Why because "on teh intertubes" makes it magically different, of course.
Resolved? (Score:2)
I'm not sure I understand how the judge thinks this is going to be "resolved" by the involved parties on their own. They appear to have diametrically opposed goals and philosophies: Google wants to make everything available on the internet, and the publishers want nothing on the internet, only on printed paper that they control. How can you resolve a conflict like that without some third party to mediate?
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I'm not sure I understand how the judge thinks this is going to be "resolved" by the involved parties on their own. They appear to have diametrically opposed goals and philosophies:
No, that's not what it is about. The parties agreed on a settlement. But it's a class action, and the judge decided that the settlement went way beyond settling the disputes between the parties. The proposed settlement essentially rewrote copyright law as an "opt-out" system, with a special deal for Google for orphaned works. That went way too far, binding parties who were never involved in the suit.
There's probably going to be orphaned works legislation, but it will not give Google exclusive rights.
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Question: Who opts in (or out) for orphaned works?
For public domain books long out of copyright, there is no argument from either side.
This debate is all about books in a very narrow range if years, where the authors are dead, but (perhaps) not the copyright, and there exists no known copyright holder.
Nothing carrying a clear copyright statement with a date that has not legally expired is covered here.
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Who opts in (or out) for orphaned works?
The correct answer is one that Google won't like, but it is the only one that truly respects the rigths that we as a society have decided to give an author. Google (or whoever wants to do this) needs to locate the person who controls the copyright and get permission. If they cannot locate the copyright holder, they cannot use the work. Of course, if copyright were reduced to a reasonable length of time, this wouldn't be a problem. They could just wait the few years until it entered public domain.
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Not that this settlement gives Google any exclusive rights either. The settlement explicitly says all granted rights are non-exclusive, and copyright holders are still free to authorise any other party to do the same thing.
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The settlement explicitly says all granted rights are non-exclusive, and copyright holders are still free to authorise any other party to do the same thing.
Only Google would get to do it without authorization. That is the definition of exclusive, is it not?
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The whole point of the settlement IS the authorisation for Google to proceed. Do you mean specific, per-rightsholder authorisation (which is obviously impractical for orphaned works)?
Nothing in the Settlement precludes a similar blanket agreement for other parties, or have I missed something? In fact it should be easier, with Google's precedent, and with the Registry that this sets up.
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The whole point of the settlement IS the authorisation for Google to proceed.
Not the copyright owners authorization.
Nothing in the Settlement precludes a similar blanket agreement for other parties
The orphaned works part of the settlement is legal hoc-us-pocus slipped in to trick the government into signing off on rights that no member of the bargain have the rights to give away. You are honestly claiming that nothing precludes you from landing the same agreement? THE LAW FUCKING PRECLUDES YOU.
This isnt the supreme court deciding that orphaned works are different... this is a fucking tort court allowing A and B to negotiate over works that neither party owns
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A third party *has* mediated, and made it clear that if the two parties don't come up with a solution then the issue will go to trial, and nobody wants that.
Personally, I don't find it at all clear why Google owes a single penny for scanning books and making them searchable, *without* allowing non-public-domain books to be seen in their entirety. They might wish to make some kind of deal to allow more access to non-public-domain books, but that has nothing to do with fair use of existing books, and if snip
Re:Resolved? (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, this problem would go away if copyright only lasted for a reasonable amount of time (say something on the order of 10-30 years).
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30 years is still much too long.
The media companies should be treated like everyone else. If you can't create and sell something for a profit in a 2-3 year span, you're in the wrong business.
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Shit, didn't mean to lump create in there. Take however long you want with that.
If you're not making money off something within 2-3 years of putting it out there, tough luck. Have fun flipping burgers.
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Shit, didn't mean to lump create in there. Take however long you want with that.
If you're not making money off something within 2-3 years of putting it out there, tough luck. Have fun flipping burgers.
You might want to look up how many years it was before YouTube turned a profit. They were loss-making all the way up to being acquired for $1.65 billion, and remained loss-making for some years after that too. If that's flipping burgers, man those are some gold-plated burgers!
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Maybe even shorter [than 2-3 years] for software, which gets updated on even shorter timescales.
On the other hand, that does enable people to take open source software which is near-current and do commercial forks of it in a completely blatant fashion. Way to go with the unintended consequences.
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Why have copyrights at all? The authors can still sell the manuscript to a publisher or sell it online these days for a buck or two.
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Just because Google does not know how to find an author does not give them the right to make copies of the author's work without permission.
In law that is true. But in fact, if the copyright holder cannot be found then no one has standing to sue. If Google did sufficient due diligence to attempt to find out who owns an orphaned work and then went ahead and scanned it I think they would be pretty safe from a damages perspective. The important thing would be to not skimp on the research.
Of course, this problem would go away if copyright only lasted for a reasonable amount of time (say something on the order of 10-30 years).
Even 50 would be fine as long as it was a fixed term (not life+years). A fixed term would make it very easy to know when the copyright has expired just by loo
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Well if google maintained one snippet of a book that might be a good argument.
But because they scan the entire book, and have a complete collection of snippets, and you can contrive to obtain and read the entire book via the snippets there is a problem.
Still for most of what is in Google Books, this is not the issue.
What seems to be the case is a consortium of authors backed by publishers who wish to lay claim to recently out of copyright works. Essentially a literary RIAA.
In no case where the copyright ho
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The libraries buy their books, and let many individuals read them serially. They do not let millions of individuals read them simultaneously. See the difference?
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Personally, I don't find it at all clear why Google owes a single penny for scanning books and making them searchable, *without* allowing non-public-domain books to be seen in their entirety.
For the same reason why I'm not legally allowed to go to a library and scan a whole book. If Google actually paid for every book they scanned and presented, they'd have a better argument. Instead, they copied a bunch of books whole from libraries.
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As the copyright holders, it's the publisher's right to determine how they want it distributed, whether they're being smart about it or complete retards. It's their right!
Google's "altruistic" motives, on the other hand, are rather self-serving in this case, and they're telling the publishers that they're wrong, and Google is right. That's rather arrogant of Google.
Oh, you don't want me to rip off your stuff and give it away? Well, I think it's cool stuff and a lot of people would like it, so I'm gonna fli
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There's a couple slight problems with your assertions about publisher's rights and Google's motives:
1) Fair Use
2) Libraries
Fair Use says you can copy limited portions of copyrighted material, as long as you don't claim it as your own. This means that Google should be well within its rights to index books, and to show limited excerpts. Now of course, this doesn't extend to making the whole book available for free, but many times people aren't reading entire books with Google, they just want to search for t
Like Music (Score:2)
Pretty soon there will be consumer level "taxes" or "fees" applied to everyone. We'll pay X amount per month for unlimited music, unlimited books. If you want a book in the first 3 months of release, you pay extra. Perhaps you subscribe to the audio-book where you can have GlaDOS read you the book (or perhaps Wheatley, the hyper British bot):
It was the best of time, it was the worst of times. Well, what's that really? Wholly contradictory, doesn't make a LICK of sense. Not saying it isn't profound in
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Thanks for making me read that in Stephen Merchant's voice.
Translation (Score:2)
orphan works (Score:2)
There's a fundamental problem with orphan works and "opt in".
By definition an orphan work is one whose copyright owner cannot be located. Demanding that they opt in defeats the whole purpose, since as soon as you find them they cease to be orphan works.
My personal opinion:
If someone in good faith looks diligently and attempts to find a copyright holder for a particular work, should be entitled to publish his intent to use the work as public domain, thus establishing constructive notice to the world. If th
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If copyright was not excessively long, by the time something became an "orphan" work, it would be out of copyright (or at worst, only a few years away from being out of copyright).
Not necessarily, the problem isn't that authors forget that they wrote a book. The problem is that someone unknowingly acquires the copyright during e.g. a bankruptcy or probate court action. This could easily happen shortly after a book was published and create an orphaned work that has nearly its entire copyright term ahead of it.
The GPs solution seems the best one overall. However, even without legislative action, it seems to me that Google could perform a diligent search for the copyright holder and
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It seems to me that if we went back to copyright requiring registration and donation of the copy of the work to the Library of Congress, and just added a rule that the only person you have to check with is the person named in the registration with the LoC - this would be solved. The person named in the LoC is dead? Public Domain.
Just have the executor of the will have the responsibility to update the registration at the LoC.
Specifically, make the onus on the copyright holder - the recipient of special socia
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While I don't have a problem with going back to making copyright require registration and donation of a copy of the work to the Library of Congress, the current problem results from copyright lasting too long.
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Why do blogs need to be copyrighted? I mean, they're copied and pasted all over anyway. And I still think that it's fine to make it the burden of the person who wants special government protection rather than the burden of everyone else.
If you don't care (as I'll posit many don't), don't register. If you do care, register.
Maybe a blog post doesn't need the same level of protection a book or movie does?
And hey, the registration could be automatic - person lists their URL, copies their post, puts in the credi
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??? The only thing Google is doing here is removing the monopoly powers of copyright from the publishers and authors.
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Nope, you have that wrong.
They are doing no such thing.
This is a pissing contest about books that have been abandoned, where no author is living and for which there is no clear copyright.
Nobody on the NYT best seller list need worry. No book publisher need be threatened.
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Yes, but the publishers and copyright holders have been trying to make sure that they are the only ones who can re-publish public domain works and get a fresh copyright.
Google is muscling in on their business model by trying to more or less keep stuff in the public domain, and then give it away and effectively keep it in the public domain.
They've already bought laws in their favor, if Google beats them to the punch, corporate profits and executive bonuses could be affected.
The commons is something these com
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It's simple, really. Either 1) let everybody and their dog copy and republish every book in the world, or 2) don't allow Google to be the only one to do it.
It's wrong to let a single private company break everybody's copyrights and punish everyone else who wants to do it.
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2) don't allow Google to be the only one to do it.
Where does it say no-one else is allowed to do this? Section 2.4 of the Agreement [googlebooksettlement.com] explicitly says any rights granted to Google are non-exclusive, and copyright holders can happily authorise any other party to do the same things.
It's wrong to let a single private company break everybody's copyrights and punish everyone else who wants to do it.
You mean, like the CRIA, and their "unpaid list" [slashdot.org] (which got settled by them paying a fraction of the owed royalties, with no penalties and no liability, while they simultaneously sued others for punitive damages many thousands of times greater)?
And there was no "good faith" involved
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Oh yeah, great find, thanks.
1) By Section 2.2, authors of orphaned works cannot limit Google's right to pirate their works.
2) By Section 2.4, authors of orphaned works are free to limit or not everyone else's right to pirate their works in every way.
Conclusion: Google
Re:A monopoly in what? (Score:4, Informative)
authors of orphaned works cannot limit Google's right to pirate their works.
Not true. Section 3.5 (a) (i):
Right to Remove. A Rightsholder of a Book may direct that his, her or its Book not be Digitized, or if already Digitized, that the Book be Removed.
Of course, most authors of orphaned works have no interest in the matter (by definition), so in those cases, their 70% share of Google's sale and advertising revenues gets held in trust for 10 years, then distributed to literacy charities (Section 6.3).
While this doesn't automatically grant you or I permission to do what Google is doing, nothing in the Settlement Agreement prevents similar blanket agreements for any other party. You'll have to negotiate it yourself with the publishers and authors' groups. At worst, you could go ahead and do it anyway, make yourself the subject of a class-action suit, and settle that like Google did, but you may likewise be required to pay $80M + legal costs.
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Not true. From Section 3.5 (a) (iii)
Read the whole section and you'll find that rightsholders basically can't tell Google to remove their books from the archive except under highly limited circumstances,
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Thanks for the pointer to 3.5 (a) (iii), didn't see that.
rightsholders basically can't tell Google to remove their books from the archive except under highly limited circumstances, and provided Google feels it's convenient.
Section 3.5 (b) (i) explains that further. So, after the 2012 date, it's true that authors can no longer direct that Google remove the book entirely from their systems, but they can demand that Google not use it in any way - Google can't sell it, display it, show ads with it, collect other revenue from it, share it etc - but it must be made available to libraries if it's commercially available (as far as I can tell, anyway).
Authors can also direct tha
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But that assumes that breaking the law is a valid business strategy. Normally, the directors of a corporation have a duty of care on the company they're managing, and exposing said company deliberately to a lawsuit by knowingly breaking the law is negligent, and m
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Well, we don't strictly know if it's considered breaking the law yet, unless/until it goes to trial. This is only a civil settlement, I believe.
change Section 2.4 that we were talking about as follows: "The authorizations granted to Google are universal
That seems reasonable enough, if a settlement to a class-action suit specifically against Google can be made to apply to any party, which I'm not sure is the case, but of course IANAL. I can also see Google not being thrilled about paying $80M to set up the Registry without any exclusive benefit, though since they have a decent head start I expect they can get somew
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Many of these books don't belong to anybody identifiable; they are orphan works.
Of course, they should really be out of copyright entirely. Under our old copyright system they would be (because they wouldn't be registered), but under the idiotic copyright system European publishers imposed on the world and forced the US to agree to, they are now in limbo.
Re:A monopoly in what? (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is good for humanity in it, what does it matter if they earn advertising revenue?
As a user, you would not be obligated to pay. So then it simply becomes a matter of your jealousy that Google is profitable.
Prior to Google Books your chance of finding most of these long-out-of-print books was essentially zero, unless you happened to live in a major city.
That Toshiba or Toro, or T-Mobile are willing to pay google to make it available to me for free bothers me not in the least. Get over yourself.
Never the mod points when I need them (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Never the mod points when I need them (Score:4, Insightful)
This is to be the greatest library ever assembled. It is worthwhile in and of itself. A noble goal to prevent the permanent loss of so much art and knowledge - to avoid the Great Forgetting. It is the very preservation of world culture.
I wish I had mod points.
A dispersed and replicated library freely available world wide. This is something you see in every sci-fi novel about futuristic super advanced civilizations.
Its like the entire community of Sci-Fi writers secretly wished this existed already.
Here some private company is build that for zero dollars. You would think this would have to be done by Governments.
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Eh? There already is another project that is building (has built) that for zero dollars. All you need is a torrent client to get a copy of it, and you can get it today, right this minute if you like.
If you believe that the goal of a free universal library for everyone on earth is more important than petty legal arguments, then support your local pirates who selflessly and anonymously m
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Piracy is not the issue here.
Google Books does not pirate books.
Educate yourself before you climb on your soap box.
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BWAHAHA. You just made my day. If Google didn't pirate books, why were they sued?
Google is the biggest book pirate in the world, and they've been sued for it. That's a fact. Educate yourself.
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You can sue a ham sandwich.
The people that sued them had no standing, because they were not the author or the copyright holder of the abandoned books.
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It doesn't matter if some random author (dead or alive) has never set foot in the courtroom, or has never even heard of the suit. Once the dispute goes to trial, he's on the side of the author's guild and whatever gets decided is final and applies to him.
Now you could argue that this should never have been allowed to become a class action in the f
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The difference is that Microsoft didn't elect to break the law to amass an illegal library of books - probably because they were already under pressure from the DOJ at that time (early to mid 2000s).
I c
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Google Books does not pirate books.
Actually, that is EXACTLY what Google is doing. They are distributing books that are still under copyright but for which the copyright owner can not be located. That's still "piracy" under the law.
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That's still "piracy" under the law.
Apparently not, but thanks for your dissenting opinion Judge.
They make a good faith effort to find the author or their heirs.
They will pull any book should the author come back from the grave and contact them.
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Apparently not, but thanks for your dissenting opinion Judge.
They make a good faith effort to find the author or their heirs.
They will pull any book should the author come back from the grave and contact them.
WTF? Don't be so smug in your ignorance. What you wrote still doesn't negate the fact that what google wants to do is explicit copyright infringement. Think I'm wrong?? Go ahead and prove it, I challenge you to show in US statute or case law where making a "good faith effort" for something you already know to be currently copyrighted is an exception to infringement.
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Go read the Settlement Agreement. These authors are dead. They left no heirs. They have no estate. There is no known rights holder on the face of planet earth for these works. There is no explicit provision in US (or any country's) law for a copyright to survive the life span of all rights holders.
Who the hell gave you the right to object anyway? Are you a rights holder?
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These authors are dead.
Hello, McFly? Don't you get it? That's is not relevant under the current law. if it were relevant, then they wouldn't even be trying to come up with this "settlement" (as if you can even "settle" with someone for the rights of a 3rd party).
Who the hell gave you the right to object anyway? Are you a rights holder?
Yes. Yes I am. Copyright is merely a temporary loan from the public domain. We are all rights holders and thus we all get a say.
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Google is looking to make Memory Alpha. That would be fantastic. Now all the need to do is merge it with Google Lunar and get it up on the moon.
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But that's not quite what Google Books is. Google Books is a single archive under the control of a single company. If something should happen to Google, it would disappear. Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive are more of what you envision.
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Apparently just long enough to prevent copying and dispersal of its holdings.
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If there is good for humanity in it, what does it matter if they earn advertising revenue?
That's not the real social problem here, the real problem is that google gets exclusive privileges that no one else does.
So all that happens is these out of print books get locked up in google. If it's going to be legal for google to republish orphaned works without compensation to the authors than it needs to be legal for everyone to do it lest we find ourselves in exactly the same situation again 10 years down the road.
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Who says they are EXCLUSIVE to google?
You seem to have thrown that nugget in there with no citation.
Anyone else can do as the same and scan these old books in just like google did.
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Who says they are EXCLUSIVE to google?
Google does. Read the proposed settlement. [googlebooksettlement.com]
They aren't negotiating for everyone, only themselves. [openbookalliance.org]
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From the Amended Settlement Agreement, Article II (italics added):
2.4 Non-Exclusivity of Authorizations. The authorizations granted to Google
in this Amended Settlement Agreement are non-exclusive only, and nothing in this
Amended Settlement Agreement shall be construed as limiting any Rightsholder’s right
to authorize, through the Registry or otherwise, any Person, including direct competitors
of Google, to use his, her or its Books or Inserts in any way, including ways identical to
those provided for under this Amended Settlement Agreement.
So can you tell us precisely which exclusive rights are being granted, and what section of the ASA grants them?
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You got it backwards. I have to wonder if all you did was grep for "exclusive" - the exclusivity here is that google gets free access to orphan works because they are the only one big enough to club the publishers over the head.
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Then you're not disputing that Google has no legal exclusive rights to anything?
So if I've got this right, instead you're apparently claiming that Google's size gives them some sort of "de-facto" exclusivity - in other words, they're "exclusive" because they're the first and so far only company that's a) bothered to do this, and b) big enough to negotiate about it, rather than roll over at the first whiff of lawyers.
Would you be happier if, say, Amazon and Apple also launched similar initiatives to make ava
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Would you be happier if, say, Amazon and Apple also launched similar initiatives to make available orphaned works (contingent of course on a similar deal)? Is there anything about this settlement that makes it harder, rather than easier, for other companies to do the same thing?
Of course not. The question is not about corporate access to orphan works, its about the fact that no one practically owns them so why should google, or any one else, get access that the regular joe doesn't.
Your entire objection is rooted in a view of corporate-controlled culture that is fundamentally in opposition to the basic premise of copyright law.
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You haven't read a single thing in this thread have you!?
Google isn't claiming ownership, and if you want to march around to hundreds of libraries and scan these books you can do so under the same terms as google did. The rights holders of these works can not be located. Probably dead.
Your solutions is to burn the books rather than allow anyone to make them available under any terms were a nickel changes hands.
Now go back and READ the thread and the Amended Settlement this time.
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I didn't think I was the one objecting, but anyway...
So your argument is, if Google (or any large corporation) can be permitted take an orphaned work and make some money from copies of it, then why shouldn't individuals be able to do the same?
If so, then I certainly agree - so long as they're held to similar conditions, particularly the parts that benefit the public by making more works available (which is after all the original spirit of copyright). I don't believe this settlement prevents that in any way.
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Just a quibble: They're not fighting for those rights, they're fighting to preserve the illegal stash they accumulated. It's a small but important difference. The legal way to do this is to first ask permission from the authors, then scan the books. The illegal way is to scan the books, then try to settle or win the case when yo
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I'm not sure that it's entirely fair to insist that Google should be fighting for the rights of its competitors, only that it not reduce those rights.
Since culture is a public good, I do think it is entirely reasonable to expect that any exemptions to the copyright social contract be take into account the good of the public. Merely being the one to spend a lot of money because you are the one with the most to gain from such exemptions shouldn't lessen that requirement.
Really, Congress should be taking a hand, IMHO.
On this, we agree.
and the precedent will only make things easier for others to win the same access, even if it's not enshrined in the this specific settlement.
On this, we do not. It is entirely possible that the existence of such an agreement will be enough to take the wind out of the sails of any corrective legislation, after
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One way is noble, the other is self-serving.
I agree completely, at least in general.
But of course in this case, the noble way is impossible, since the works being scanned are orphaned, and the self-serving way is closer to 30% self-serving and 70% charity-serving (plus the public good resulting from the orphaned works being available again). Since the alternative is either to do nothing, which benefits nobody, or to hope that Congress takes the initiative (ho ho), I personally think it's good that Google is being proactive and forcing the issue.
Maybe
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You make some good points, though I'm still not sure I entirely agree with this being classed as an "exemption" to the copyright social contract. It's effectively an exemption to copyright law, certainly, and I'm not surprised the judge is nervous about agreeing to that.
But at least as far as the intent of the copyright social contract goes, making orphaned works available again, and without reducing the incentive of authors to create more of them, is absolutely within the original spirit of copyright. We n
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Ah yes, of course, the ends justify the means. The fact the people who poured their sweat into their writing don't get compensated, well, who cares about them.
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Oh for Pete sake!
Have you read nothing on this thread?
Re:A monopoly in what? (Score:5, Informative)
Authors are either dead or unknown. Fate has already screwed them.
This is not an argument about current authors, or currently valid copyrights.
In no way is Google proposing to screw living authors or copyright holders out of money.
The works in question are abandoned works, where the copyright holders are unknown.
Why should OTHER authors or publishers profit from these abandoned works? Believe me, that is what this is, nothing but a money grab by publishing companies trying to lay claim to works long ago abandoned by authors, or works of dead authors where there is no clear copyright.
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Oh wait, I don't get to do that. Only Google gets to do that. DO NOT WANT.
At least the publishers have to sign contracts with the authors.
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How is this a money grab by Google?
Have you even once visited the Google books on line and read the FAQ?
How are you prevented from scanning your out-of-copyright books and selling them?
How does a publisher sign a contract with a dead author or an abandoned works author?
You would rather the books disappear all together?
You would rather have some cheesy "collection" author pen 5 a five paragraph introduction and then copyright the entire thing as his own? (Don't laugh this is happening every day in the Kindl
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They intend to monetize the exclusive right to show people scanned copies of orphaned books.
Of course. Have you visited other providers of public domain online books? There's quite a few other sites besides Google if you look.
The same way you are. It's against the law.
Re:A monopoly in what? (Score:5, Informative)
Don't be ridiculous.
Every person who has used google books knows you are lying.
How can you say its not available on line, and in the next sentence claim you only get blurry images? You can't have it both ways.
Its all on line.
Full texts are available, both imaged and OCRed flowing text, for all books that are free of copyright encumbrance. You can read the whole book.
Unless the publisher or author still holds a copyright and refuses to allow google to put it out there.
Your argument is internally inconsistent, at war with itself, and at odds with the facts. Do just a little research.
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Stealing what? If the copyright holder can't be found, (s)he isn't receiving any royalties either.
Copyright was created to allow author to profit from their works, to incentivize their creation. What is the point of dead-locking these works? It benefits neither the public nor the author.
Even physical property (like houses) can be claimed by third parties if they take control of it and the owner doesn't reclaim it (see the guy who 'bought' a house for $16). So now IP is stronger that real property?
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1) Take the existing scans you have and put them on a web page for everyone to download.
2) Either visit the University of Michigan yourself or contact a student with a library card there. Offer to pay him/her for checking the book out of the library, and scanning the pages at the local copyshop. Paypal him/her an agreed amount in exchange for the scanned image files. Put the pages on your webpage for everyone to download.
You can do this today with any public domain works
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Everyone and every company has different priorities, and your priorities are unique. You probably care more about your grandfather's works than anyone on the planet. Google has better odds of preserving his work, but survival is a statistical problem. You can't rely on a single arc