If Google Gives In On Library Scanning -- Will It Hurt Everyone?
from the not-such-a-good-thing dept
A few years back, Google started scanning all the books they could get their hands on with their Google Print project. This was often with the publishers' permission. However, when Google couldn't get enough books, they also signed a deal with various university libraries to scan their books as well -- which upset the publishers who felt their deals were being undercut. It didn't take long for a bunch of publishers and authors to sue Google, claiming that scanning copyrighted books was copyright infringement. It's a bit more complex than that, of course. Google has a pretty strong leg to stand on, as they're not making all of the text available, but really creating an online card catalog/index for the books they scan. It's really no different than what they do for websites. If indexing books is found to be a copyright violation, then it's not a large leap to say that all of Google is violating copyright by doing the exact same thing to websites. It's also worth noting that being in such an index is a huge benefit to those included. That's why people fight like crazy to make sure they're well listed in Google. Yet, the book publishers seem to think they should be paid for Google to help people find their books.The New Yorker is running an article that digs into the Google book scanning issue, and notes that many people (including those at both Google and the publishers) suggest that this is likely to be settled before it goes to court. Both sides say that this is really a business negotiating tactic -- suggesting that Google may just pay the publishers off at some point to keep them quiet. If they went down this route, it would be quite similar to what Google did with record labels when they bought YouTube. They basically paid them off to keep them from suing, while encouraging them to sue other competing projects. This is, as a few people note in the article, a really bad deal. It may work out for Google and the publishers initially -- but it hurts everyone in the longterm. First of all, it adds in a book indexing license that probably isn't necessary under copyright law at all. Adding in a de facto additional license doesn't help anyone.
It hurts the public by making it that much more expensive to get these books indexed. It hurts the libraries by making it that much more expensive to get their collections searchable by computer. However, what the New Yorker article doesn't note is that it really hurts Google and the publishers as well. It hurts Google initially by making it more expensive (not a huge deal to them), but it then opens them up to those same charges for indexing websites. It's just opening up a can of worms that they don't want to open. It makes things worse for publishers by effectively locking them into a Google-only solution. The article quotes Tim Wu noting that Google isn't the best at everything it does -- and small startups can often do a better job. However, by signing an expensive deal with Google, the publishers have limited book indexing just to a few huge companies, leaving the agile startups out of it -- even though those startups could do a better job of scanning books in a way that helps them sell more books. In fact, even if Google is doing a good job (and it looks like they are for now), having more competition would push them to keep doing a better job. Instead, if they do a deal, they can rest on their laurels, knowing that the competition will be limited. That may make life easier for Google, but it means the product won't be as good.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Word of the day is - Obfuscation
Now if Google separates this project from all advertising and only displays the search tool and the resulting indexed listing then that would be a hoss of a different color.
That, however, is not Google's stated business plan.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Word of the day is - Obfuscation
I don't see how that's true. They're supporting both the spirit and the letter of copyright law.
They're not "competing" with the publishers by offering up a substitute product. They are offering fair payment in terms of getting those books much more attention. It's really no different than indexing the web. Do you think Google is violating both the spirit and letter of the law in indexing the web?
The fact that they're using the entire work does not cancel out fair use protections. That's only one element of fair use, and you don't need to hit all of the different carve outs to be covered.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
If google was smart they would point that fact out instead of playing games with money.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I don't think the publishing industry would settle
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bravo!
We seem to have have forgotten that the original purpose of copyright was to provide a limited incentive to creators - not a welfare system for elderly ex-artists, not a lifetime income for their next of kin, and certainly not a continuous money stream for middlemen.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Card catalouges
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I have said it before, and will say it again...
The same thing with books. If I wrote and published a book, I wouldnt want others to be able to replicate it freely in any way. If someone wants to advertise my book, I will give them specific copy that they may crop.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Thanks a lot, Jamaal
With a policy like that, the internet becomes a whole lot crappier.
Good for you. Copyright does exactly what you said in your first sentence - prevents them from replicating it freely in any way. What you don't seem to understand, though, is that it *also* gives one the right to replicate some portions of your book in some ways. These are clearly deliniated by Fair Use, and somewhat less clearly by legal precedent.
In any case, currently Google has every right to index pages. It could even ignore robots.txt if it wanted to - it honors that to be nice. The law can change, certainly, but that's how the law works.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]