After 7 Years In Court, Google Settles With Publishers On Book Scanning 127
redletterdave writes "After seven long years of litigation, Google Inc. and the Association of American Publishers have reached an agreement to settle over the search giant's book-scanning project, which will allow publishers to choose whether or not they want their books, journals and publications digitized by Google and accessed via its Google Library Project. The agreement, according to the two companies, acknowledges the rights and interests of copyright holders, so U.S. publishers can choose to remove their books and journals digitized by Google for its Library Project, or choose to keep their publications available. For those that keep their works online with Google, those publishers will be able to keep a digital copy for their own use and sell their publications via the Google Play marketplace."
Also reported by Reuters, as carried by the Chicago Tribune, and the BBC.
Re:Wow! What a victory! (Score:5, Informative)
Pretty much, yes.
Although from the beginning Google would scan books from the affected publishers, it would only put fair use amounts (often only a couple pages) on the web. Essentially what you could photocopy in a public library.
Now they can put up to 20% online, far more than most libraries would photocopy for you, and any publisher can ask the book to be pulled, which I predict none will do.
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Intensely idiotic (Score:4, Insightful)
Like every copyright case initiated by one of the big names, like the *AAs or big corporate publishing houses, this case is INTENSELY idiotic.
Google got the good end of this. Basically the corporate assholes can shoot themselves in the foot and pull their material... and lose money in the long run. Google can provide a free publicity service or you can take your ball and go home.
What a difficult choice....
Re:Intensely idiotic (Score:5, Insightful)
I though the publishers are on the right here. What gives google the right to scan and put up copyrighted work on their website, without the permissions of the copyright holder?
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Re:Intensely idiotic (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't opt-in if you are dead, in a coma, clinically insane, etc.
Why should the public, who has granted a limited right to control copying, be denied use of your work after that right has expired because you didn't bother to leave us machine-readable version?
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You can't opt-in if you are dead, in a coma, clinically insane, etc.
Doesn't matter, copyright still applies. I do like what Google is doing, but it seems to be about as incompatible with current copyright laws as you can get.
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That's a reasonable argument for a public copyright registration scheme with an escrow facility.
It's not a good argument for making copyright off-by-default.
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The publishers rights are not unlimited.
Putting a few pages online could / should be considered within fair use.
Not having someone big do something like this would result in a lot of abandoned works being lost. This is a much more serious problem for society than whatever damage putting a few pages online would do to the publishers.
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Re:Intensely idiotic (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this a trick question? How is "fair use" not applicable?
This is absolutely no different from the "scanning" and "putting up" that google does of every other part of the internet. Why should the fact that it started out in a grossly inefficient medium be any distinction whatsoever?
Re:Intensely idiotic (Score:4, Insightful)
Depends on how much of the book is being digitally published without the express consent of the copyright holder. A portion of the cover art, the table of contents, and very small number of sample paragraphs seem like a reasonable amount for "fair use". Entire chapters or a large portion of most chapters of a book seems like an unreasonable amount for "fair use".
Actually the websites that are being scanned are freely available on the internet and Google only provides enough of the website to give the user information on wether or not to visit that website. Also the website can attempt to opt-out preemptively by placing a file in their URL space that informs the web crawler of the author not wanting any of the pages scanned.
You are correct. The copyright holder should have his rights respected regardless of the medium being used.
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1) To the best of my knowledge, the results that Google intended to display consisted of a few lines from any particular book. They had to have an entire copy scanned in because the lines that matched one search would of course be different from the lines that match another. But the users wouldn't see the whole thing in one go. Also, fair use can encompass the entirety of a work. Whether a use is fair will depend on the circumstances involved; there are no bright line rules in fair use.
2) It's irrelevant th
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Before we go further, I'd like to point out that I don't have a vested interested for or against Google books. Regardless of any possible benefits to the book author, I do think that Google pushed the envelope on what should be appropriate fair use. My impression of the situation is that Google abused its resources to accomplish something that it thought would make it money regardless of the wishes of the owners of the copyrighted material.
(For others who may be reading this comment: If the idea of someone
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I also have no vested interest in Google Book Search, though I think it sounds useful, and I'd probably use it as a research tool if it were available, regardless of whatever legal wrangling had to go on behind the scenes to enable it to work. To me it's basically just an improved card catalog; rather than searching by subject, we can now search for strings or even just individual words. Whether or not Google can profit from it is irrelevant to me. Certainly it is okay to profit from a fair use, such as in
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Google "scans" and "puts up" pages that are publicly viewable. They don't put up pages that are behind a pay wall (unless, of course, the web server is poorly configured, or the dev makes it possible for Googlebot to view the pages--such as experts-exchange). Scanning non-free books and making them searchable is akin to putting up pages behind a paywall when they haven't actually been given permission to do so.
Re:Intensely idiotic (Score:4, Interesting)
If the publishers were sure that what Google was doing wouldn't come under fair use, they could have taken Google to court. They chose not to, which means that they aren't sure that it wouldn't be considered fair use by a court.
To give the physical analogy that Google would undoubtedly use, it's common practice for libraries to buy books and allow anyone to browse them in order to determine whether the book is one they're interested in. It's also common practice for libraries to have photocopiers available at a nominal charge, so that people can make copies of portions of the available books. Both of these things are perfectly legal under US copyright law. Indeed, Section 108 of the Copyright Act states that public libraries and public archives may allow patrons to freely copy materials, and cannot be held liable for such copying so long as they display a specific notice on each piece of copying equipment. The end user can be held liable, but the library or archive cannot.
Thus, there's ample precedent that what Google is allowing through their online archive is, in fact, perfectly legal. This is why the publishers chose to settle rather than go to court - they were afraid that a court might allow Google even greater leeway.
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Cultures? society? Human instinct to share?
Copyright is an anathema to human behavior. One that would be worth having it copyright was returned to a sane amount of time.
Copyright holders want to lock up culture, and that's going to far.
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What gives copyright holders the right to hoard knowledge?
Draconian laws and bribery.
If I borrow a book from the library and read it to my children, when they themselves did not borrow the book, is that not doing the same thing Google is doing?
It's on an entirely different scale.
Re:Intensely idiotic (Score:5, Interesting)
I though the publishers are on the right here. What gives google the right to scan and put up copyrighted work on their website, without the permissions of the copyright holder?
You have to sort of pay attention to what was really happening all along....
Previously, you could only get a fair use sample of a book, a few pages at best, in response to a search. You couldn't get the whole book. You got less than what a public library would allow you to photocopy in house.
At no time was google providing entire books still in copyright from known publishers and authors.
Now you get up to 20% on line. (The publishers finally figured out that if you read 20%, you are more likely to buy the book to get the rest).
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I though the publishers are on the right here. What gives google the right to scan and put up copyrighted work on their website, without the permissions of the copyright holder?
You have to sort of pay attention to what was really happening all along....
Previously, you could only get a fair use sample of a book, a few pages at best, in response to a search. You couldn't get the whole book. You got less than what a public library would allow you to photocopy in house.
At no time was google providing entire books still in copyright from known publishers and authors.
Now you get up to 20% on line. (The publishers finally figured out that if you read 20%, you are more likely to buy the book to get the rest).
It doesn't matter is google was making them available online in whole, in part, or not at all.
They violated copyright when they copied them in the first place. And they copied books they didn't even own! They waltzed into public librarians, took over a room, some tables, and a library employee for a couple of weeks, and photographed every book they could find. "It's ok, we're allowed to do this because we're Google!"
Re:Intensely idiotic (Score:4, Informative)
It doesn't matter is google was making them available online in whole, in part, or not at all.
They violated copyright when they copied them in the first place. And they copied books they didn't even own! They waltzed into public librarians, took over a room, some tables, and a library employee for a couple of weeks, and photographed every book they could find. "It's ok, we're allowed to do this because we're Google!"
No they didn't.
Copyright allows you to copy your own copy of a book, AND It allows you to give Fair Use Excerpts to your friends for free.
In most cases for current production books, they just bought them off the shelf.
They didn't waltz in to libraries, they asked, and they paid big grant money, and had the consent of the librarians who were all
on board with the project.
Don't confuse the ancient out of print book effort with the scanning of current books in your haste to post the hate.
Re:Intensely idiotic (Score:5, Informative)
Well, for one thing Google isn't putting the works up on their website. They're making a copy of the work to store in their database to be searched, but what appears on the search results page is an excerpt from the book (the same sort you see in Google's search results for web pages) and a link to where the book's available (eg. Amazon). So my question is, why should Google need permission from the copyright holder to index things for search? I classify the objections here the same way I classify objections to freely watching DVDs I've purchased copies of because technically watching it involves making an additional copy into the player's memory.
And as far as I can tell, in the cases where Google's making the work itself available it's in cases where the work isn't in print (ie. you can't buy it anywhere else) and the copyright holder can't be contacted or isn't known (ie. you can't contact them to get permission). In those cases I can't find anything wrong with Google's actions, the publisher obviously doesn't care about profiting from the work or it wouldn't be out of print and the copyright holder isn't profiting because the work isn't being sold and nobody has any way of getting the money to them if it were.
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The copy of the book isn't either. If what's presented is copyright infringement, then every single library card catalog, every single snippet in a review, every single cover image would be copyright infringement. And canonically they're not.
And no, rights don't typically revert to the author just because the book's out-of-print. I've seen several authors having major fights with their p
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Clauses like that are fairly common in book publishing in my experience, but they are not obligatory and a shady publisher could surely slip one by an unsuspecting author (likely one without good representation).
Meanwhile, check out all the 203 and 304 terminations showing up or about to; plenty of them are the result of a lack of a termination or reversion clause in the license or assignment.
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BTW, if the work is out of print, the copyright typically devolves back to the author.
More exactly, it's pretty rare that the publisher *ever* had ownership of the copyright. The same isn't true of all creative works, but authors have done pretty well at retaining ownership of their creations.
However, that's irrelevant.
The point is that if a book is out of print and unavailable, regardless of whose decision it is to stop producing it, and if copyright law is what's preventing it from being published, then copyright law is failing. The purpose of copyright is to encourage publication, t
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I though the publishers are on the right here. What gives google the right to scan and put up copyrighted work on their website, without the permissions of the copyright holder?
Absolutely nothing. If any individual had done the same thing, or even just scanned books to index them for personal use, they'd be a rotting corpse by now.
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What gives google the right to scan and put up copyrighted work on their website, without the permissions of the copyright holder?
The common good.
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It's not like they were putting whole books online or anything like that. It was just a little bit, usually the table of contents plus a few pages. All that ever would have done is make people aware of the book who might then want to buy it!
The publishers, who ultimately end up benefiting from this exposure made a big fuss about it. How is that not 'Intensely Idiotic'?
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Re:Intensely idiotic (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, look at this this way. When the publishers hoard their material and choose to not publish, it gets lost forever. At least if it's digitized, it'll survive.
Music is a good example of this. There's a lot of music 20+ years old that's no longer in print, and the labels are no longer around. If someone that had a copy didn't digitize it, it's lost forever.
Re:Intensely idiotic (Score:5, Insightful)
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It sure as fuck is an argument. Copyright is a SOCIAL BARGAIN. We, The People have every right to tell IP holders to shove it up their ass, if we so desire. And I assure you that people will continue to make great art long after copyright bites the dust. To think otherwise completely ignores human nature.
"Social bargain" and "social contract" are phrases used by people who have no logical or legal basis for an argument, and want things their way just because.
Re:Intensely idiotic (Score:4, Insightful)
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In contrast to those that buy law to get what they want
This is so ignorant its not even funny. Copyright has been recognized by the US since its founding (its in the constitution, article 2 I believe).
Right now caution is abandoned and we are allowing the IP holders to encroach Liberty too far.
Then reform the system, dont throw it away entirely. What is commonly encouraged here is ripping out a somewhat flawed system and replacing it with a kind of free-for-all that guarentees absolutely no rights for the content creators. Its ridiculous in the extreme.
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In contrast to those that buy law to get what they want
This is so ignorant its not even funny. Copyright has been recognized by the US since its founding (its in the constitution, article 2 I believe).
If I recall correctly, US did not recognize English copyrights until late in the 20th centurh (ask Mark Twian and Oscar Wilde about it, they complained a lot about it)
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I assume you're referring to human's nature to create?
What about human nature to be selfish? Hell, what about the human nature to survive by having a profession that is actually lucrative? It's easy for us, the consumers, to demand that all creators do their work for free because we only look at the exorbitantly wealthy publishers who profit from them. Do I like copyright laws? No, I don't, but to jump blindly to the other extreme is just naive. Just my two cents.
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Abolishing copyright and demand free work is a false dichotomy.
Study finds pirates 10 times more likely to buy music [guardian.co.uk]
I know that some people find this amazing, but people actually pay for things for reasons besides being The Law.
Ass shoving is not a human right (Score:3)
Copyright *is* a social bargain, but nobody has a right to "ass shoving". The copyright holders have a right to perform their work without being exploited and/or being forced to seek wealthy patrons as their only source of income. The General Public has a right to receive the productions of the IP holders without being subject to disproportionate penalty for violations, undue terms of restriction, or other features of a system that might skew things too far in favor of the other party.
Neither side has an
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The copyright holders have a right to perform their work without being exploited and/or being forced to seek wealthy patrons as their only source of income.
Only so long as copyright exists. Laws can change.
because as usual there's a HEALTY BALANCE that exists somewhere between absolutism on either side.
Whether or not it's a "healthy balance" is quite subjective.
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Copyright is a SOCIAL BARGAIN
No, its a legal one, enshrined in US law.
We, The People have every right to tell IP holders to shove it up their ass, if we so desire.
Not when our founding "social contract" establishes the protection of IP, we dont. Once things are in law, generally that isnt an option-- laws arent there as a suggestion.
That this got modded insightful is a little depressing; are driving laws also a social bargain that you're free to ignore if you so desire? Which laws are the ones you can ignore?
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Not when our founding "social contract" establishes the protection of IP, we don't.
It does not.
The Constitution authorizes Congress to establish IP protections for limited times and for a specific purpose. It does not require Congress to do so, and it does not authorize Congress to establish any sort of perpetual, unlimited monopoly for any reason or no reason at all. The constitutional basis of IP law was absolutely intended -- and written -- to create exactly the social contract to which the GP referred.
Once things are in law, generally that isnt an option-- laws arent there as a suggestion.
Laws can be wrong, and our current copyright laws are wrong. They're seriously
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So, I'm just a bit hesitant on retracting or unilaterally altering those bargains, because of where and how else that principle could be applied.
Copyright really doesn't seem like any other right. If it was like other rights, it wouldn't be temporary (technically, it is temporary even now).
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Cory Doctrow famously has all of his books in Creative Commons. You can download them for free legally if you don't want to pay. He does alright.
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Paulo "Pirate [guardian.co.uk]" Coelho.
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Shakespeare didn't publish Romeo and Juliet. Apart from poor bootleg versions, it was only published after his death. Shakespeare wrote for the stage, not for publication.
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Of course that didn't stop other people from publishing it. (And anyway, it's not like Shakespeare was a particularly original guy -- He merely wrote a new adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, a story which was already around)
My favorite is the bad version of Hamlet with the hilariously dictated soliloquy. (You can find it in Wikipedia)
Plus, for copyright purposes, we may as well consider performances or displays of fixed works to be publication. Ideally, yes, copies would be sold or given to the public. But if
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Well, there was great literature before copyright protection,
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I agree that copyright is basically a good idea, very badly implemented. But I would say that it doesn't eliminate patronage, in that 1) you can still have patrons; and 2) even where mass market published copies and royalties are the basis for an author's livelihood, it really just shifts the patronage to the reading public. If a patron doesn't like a book, the author may lose his job. If the world doesn't like a book, the author is in just the same pickle. Copyright enables a kind of distributed, passive p
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"Reward enough? 80% of authors would say no. "
Well, that gets rid of 100% of the fluff and crap currently written.
"All the author gets is good feeling that people are reading their work."
How about because you want to write it!! The good feeling comes next. If you're only doing it for the money then you're doing it for the wrong reason.
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Just a thought... what if your boss reduced your pay by 50% and told you that "if you're only doing it for money, then you're doing it for the wrong reason"?
Of course the only reason I write is because I enjoy it. And submitting any of my work for publishing would have reward in and of itself, but to do so would require that I devote an enormous amount of time that I could otherwise spend earning money and providing for my family, which, right now, I consider the more important task.
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Obviously it's a hypothetical argument, but I can say that as an aspiring novelist, my motivation to finish my book would be lessened if I knew that even if my work went viral, I would have nothing to show for it except for a few book readings at coffee shops.
I have free, easy, unDRMed access to every single book, music, movie and TV show made in the last few years via torrent, Usenet and other means. Ask me how many of those I've read, listened or watched have been not-paid for. Answer: only those I couldn't purchase because they were locked behind idiotic geographical and similar restrictions, luckily fewer and fewer as time passes.
Your argument is simply false. In regards to a piece of content there are always three types of people: a) those who will always p
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Sorry buddy, "because FUCK the copyright holders!" is not an argument. You may be right in saying that we should have the right to do what we want with what we've purchased, but play the Devil's advocate for a moment...
The year is 2016: Every book that has ever been printed is now considered "public domain" since copyright laws have been abolished and you can find any literature you want just by googling the title and author. Sound great? Well it also turns out that books have annually been published 80% less since the copyright laws were struck down. Why is that, do you think? Perhaps it's because there's no longer any motivation for authors to publish their books since they aren't paid any money once they are published. They are made immediately available for the public's viewing. All the author gets is good feeling that people are reading their work. Reward enough? 80% of authors would say no.
Obviously it's a hypothetical argument, but I can say that as an aspiring novelist, my motivation to finish my book would be lessened if I knew that even if my work went viral, I would have nothing to show for it except for a few book readings at coffee shops.
I'd like to add one little wrinkle to your oh-so-pessimistic future.
Authors across the globe join together in a Kickstarter-esque crowd sourcing micropayment service, so if people read their latest book, love it and want to see another, they contribute some $ to the writers 'next book bucket' to support it. That way, the writer knows ahead of time if there is sufficient interest in his/her writing to justify creating a new work. Doners would indicate at the time of contribution whether they prefer to rece
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The flaw with your scheme is that the first, unfunded work will serve as the example by which the author is judged. It is also the one that is going to be produced in spare hours after the day job that pays the bills, written without the assistance of a professional editor, etc. Rare indeed is the author who can produce their best work under those conditions.
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The flaw with your scheme is that the first, unfunded work will serve as the example by which the author is judged. It is also the one that is going to be produced in spare hours after the day job that pays the bills, written without the assistance of a professional editor, etc. Rare indeed is the author who can produce their best work under those conditions.
I'm sorry, is there some sort of fairy godmother that provides free cash while an author is writing their first book? They somehow found the time and energy to produce that first work, and now people are interested enough to want to see a second offering. This would simply allow the readers to express their support for that future work directly, rather than indirectly through book sales.
Perhaps the site could provide some percentage of the bucket to the author while they are writing the next work, to help
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I'm sorry, is there some sort of fairy godmother that provides free cash while an author is writing their first book?
Yes. They're called publishers, and the free cash is called an advance. It's common practice to provide a significant amount of funding to an author up-front, which is guaranteed but will be reclaimed out of their later earnings if the book makes money. This is done because publishers are picky about which authors they take on but view those they do sign up as investments, so they want the first book from the author (and any book with their publishing house's name on it) to be as good as they can make it.
Contrary to popular (read: corporate) belief, ordinary people don't mind purchasing their media, as long as it's convenient, not ridiculously overpriced, and supports the actual creator of the work...
Un
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I'm sorry, is there some sort of fairy godmother that provides free cash while an author is writing their first book?
Yes. They're called publishers, and the free cash is called an advance. It's common practice to provide a significant amount of funding to an author up-front, which is guaranteed but will be reclaimed out of their later earnings if the book makes money. This is done because publishers are picky about which authors they take on but view those they do sign up as investments, so they want the first book from the author (and any book with their publishing house's name on it) to be as good as they can make it.
Really? So I can go to a publisher, tell them I have this idea for a book, and they'll give me cash? Sweet deal! Why isn't everyone a writer, then?!?
Contrary to popular (read: corporate) belief, ordinary people don't mind purchasing their media, as long as it's convenient, not ridiculously overpriced, and supports the actual creator of the work...
Unfortunately, the real world evidence is not nearly as clear as you're making out. If it were, this debate would have been over a long time ago.
In reality, when creators offer choose-your-own-pricing, plenty of people do just take the product for free. Even creators who give away their work completely free, from a well designed and robust source available to anyone, still find that a significant number of other people will rip it and redistribute, and a significant number of users are using those "pirate" versions instead of real ones.
Of course there are plenty of people who will be honest and pay a fair price, particularly if it's clearly supporting the people who did the hard work to create the product. But this is nowhere near as universal as you're claiming.
I still can't figure out how that iTunes makes so much money, if that's the case...oh, wait, it's because ordinary people (read, not either cheapskates, broke-ass students or people living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to make rent every month) don't usually mind paying a bit for their entertainment, even if they know it can be had for free elsewhere.
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The good thing about this is that you have been proven wrong already. The content industries (WTF?) report that illegal copying has grown to previously unimagined levels in the last two decades, but new published creations have grown also beyond predictions.
Authors do not necessarily get any prejudice from this — Part of this new creations are published using novel retribution schemes, such as direct payments, micropayments, etc. Many authors have embraced Creative Commons-like licensing.
If you unders
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Probably property rights that have to do with real property and not just artificial monopolies given to people because they can't find a good business model. I don't own this game I bought? Perhaps not legally, but I feel that I definitely own it.
Re:Intensely idiotic (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, no - I don't agree to anything. Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, publishers tried exactly what you're talking about - they put a notice in the front of their books stating that you were only licensed this copy of the book, not sold it, and that you were not allowed to resell it. (In some cases, simply that you were not allowed to sell it below a certain price). The Supreme Court held this to be illegal, leading to what's called "The Doctrine of First Sale".
The reason that you're not allowed to copy a book has nothing to do with agreeing with terms - it's because copyright law makes it illegal. It doesn't matter whether the book has a notice saying that you can't copy it, simply has a bare copyright notice, or has no copyright notice at all - it's equally illegal either way.
Now, from a technical point of view, Google is allowing the making copies of copyright material. So that's copyright infringement, right? Well, maybe and maybe not. There are fair use exemptions, and there are precedents in things like libraries having photocopiers so that people can copy portions of books. If Google is making a good effort to set up things in such a way that people can't just copy whole books and make off with them, then there's a good chance that a court might hold that what they're doing is no more illegal than, say, the New York Public Library having lots of book and having photocopiers that people can take them to.
That's what the publishers are afraid of, and that was Google's leverage to negotiate with them.
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If Google is making a good effort to set up things in such a way that people can't just copy whole books and make off with them, then there's a good chance that a court might hold that what they're doing is no more illegal than, say, the New York Public Library having lots of book and having photocopiers that people can take them to.
I can't believe any unbiased court is going to fall for that. There are numerous obvious and fundamental differences, starting with the facts that Google is ultimately doing it for profit, not just to provide a public service, and that an automated on-line system that offers easy access to large parts of a work is far more accessible that a system that requires physically attending a library and manually copying every page, which surely amplifies any argument about damaging the value of the original work.
That's what the publishers are afraid of, and that was Google's leverage to negotiate with them.
I
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I can't believe any unbiased court is going to fall for that. There are numerous obvious and fundamental differences, starting with the facts that Google is ultimately doing it for profit, not just to provide a public service, and that an automated on-line system that offers easy access to large parts of a work is far more accessible that a system that requires physically attending a library and manually copying every page, which surely amplifies any argument about damaging the value of the original work.
The law in question, however, does not require the library or archive in question to not be for-profit. It simply has to either provide public access, or, if it's a subject-specialized library, provide access to any researchers doing research in the field. The law also doesn't say anything about how accessible the library/archive in question can or can't be
Also, Google could quite reasonably argue that they were being much more restrictive than the law requires - a library or archive doesn't have to imp
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And this is fundamentally different from Apple's OS -- FreeBSD + changes
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Aside from the fact that FreeBSD, being released under BSD, is actually free software?
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Absolutely! I'm going to go download the Linux kernel, make my own changes to it and distribute it without providing the source code! Screw Linus and his stupid copyright!
Sure, provided I can also use your binary any way I want, including decompiling your changes and reusing them in whatever project of mine.
GPL is a clever workaround to the lack of the above right. Given that without copyright there's no advantage for a company to keep things binary-blobbed, no one would feel something missing due to lack of something like the GPL.
Re:Intensely idiotic (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm more concerned about orphaned works and the length of copyright causing a work to be completely destroyed before it can be preserved. I understand the desire to keep copyright, and I understand the idea that Google is infringing by creating these digital copies and then providing excerpts for users, but the wealth of knowledge that gets lost because of copyrights that last essentially forever is a real problem that needs a real solution.
Perhaps it's stupid to entrust that burden to a corporation, and it should be the job of a public or non-profit institution, but this knowledge must be preserved.
Re:Intensely idiotic (Score:5, Insightful)
If only the Library of Congress in the US, national library of China, library of Russian academy of science, National library and Archives Canada, and the German National Library existed.
Re:Intensely idiotic (Score:4, Insightful)
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The library of Congress specializes in certain things.In many areas, they're no better than a college library
Instructional Support level: A collection that in a university is adequate to support undergraduate and most graduate instruction, or sustained independent study; that is, adequate to maintain knowledge of a subject required for limited or generalized purposes, of less than research intensity
In some areas, they are truly awesome:
Comprehensive Level: A collection which, so far as is reasonably possible, includes all significant works of recorded knowledge (publications, manuscripts, and other forms), in all applicable languages, for a necessarily defined and limited field. This level of collecting intensity is one that maintains a " special collection." The aim, if not achievement, is exhaustiveness.
Their areas of interests are defined here [loc.gov]
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And then there is their hard on for microfilm.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Fold [wikipedia.org]
In ancient times all people who came into the city of Alexandria were searched for books. Any books that were brought into the city which were of interest were copied in order to add to the collection of the great and famous Library of Alexandria, the biggest and best archive in the classical world.
But only a few works of antiquity which would've been found there have survived to the present day. Most were lost to decay,
Re:Intensely idiotic (Score:5, Informative)
I'm more concerned about orphaned works and the length of copyright causing a work to be completely destroyed before it can be preserved
Actually, (according to the first link) the Orphaned Works issue is still pending, with the Author's Guild still fighting on the behalf of dead or unknown authors and asserting that they, (the author's guild) have standing to represent these dead or unknown authors, and force Google to remove their works.
...and in the rest of the world? (Score:5, Interesting)
so U.S. publishers can choose...
What about the rest of the world? If the US publisher of a particular book says 'no' and the British publisher says 'yes' does the book get scanned or not? Does it get scanned but censored in the US? What about books with no US publisher?
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What about the rest of the world?
Hey, that's what the legal system and copyright law get you. 196 different settlements required.
Oh, another bulllet point for the "IP is damaging" list.
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The last thing we want is a uniform global copyright law; it would inevitably be terrible for most of the countries involved.
Better to have each country write their own copyright laws (or not) from scratch, with the one core principle being that it should best serve the people of that country -- not authors, not publishers, not people elsewhere in the world. The only things I'd want to see done globally are 1) national treatment so that anyone who seeks a copyright in a given jurisdiction isn't discriminate
Author's Guild lawsuit still alive (Score:5, Informative)
Remember what happened here. Google tried to rewrite copyright law through litigation so that Google would have the exclusive right to digitize and resell works in copyright, subject to paying fees through some clearinghouse. The judge didn't go for that. The agreement now just affects material controlled by members of the Association of American Publishers.
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They never wanted an exclusive license. They just wanted a license. People painting it as "exclusive" just weren't willing to go through all the trouble to scan the stuff on their own.
Took 7 years for common sense approach? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's ashamed it took 7 years to agree to something that summed up sounds so reasonably easy to agree to.
*sigh* sounds like the lawyers milked both sides for all they were both worth.
The media industry wins again (Score:3)
And the citizens lose, as free access to knowledge takes another step backwards.
I hope Google does the right thing (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope Google does the right thing and publishes a list of all publishers who opt out of Google's book scanning project. The list should be public and searchable.
That makes it clear to authors which publishers are clueless. if an author publishes his book with one of these publishers, the author just made sure his book is not searchable by the best search tool on the planet.
As a consumer, not only will I not happen to find any books from these clueless publishers, I would like such a list so that I can actively avoid buying from such clueless publishers.
Let evolution take its course. Dinosaur publishers who don't want Google searching their books. Etc.
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When I buy a book I am quite sure I want it permanently on my bookshelf. Clueful publishers are helpful in this process. Sometimes they put one chapter of the book online for free. Other times, I can preview bits of it on Amazon. Etc. Just like back in the previous millennium I could turn the pages of the actual book and look at it before taking it to the checkout counter.
If you're so against google scanning your book, then you must not want your book to be found. And furthermore, I don't
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Costs me money.
More poll taxes on us.
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It's kind of a crock.
Remind me again... "publishers"? (Score:2)
Were they the ones who made buggy whips?
Correct Attribution (Score:2)
Great job on the correct link attributions in summary. Gold star.