Linguist Explains That Txting Isn't Ruining Spelling Or The English Language

Making Google Products Easier To Use Is Not 'Encouraging Stealing'

from the it's-called-efficiency dept

Wed, Sep 17th 2008 12:10pm — Kevin Donovan

Recently, Google Docs unveiled a number of new features including a built-in way to use Google Image Search to find pictures to complement written documents. Many people already use Google Image Search to find suitable graphics, regardless of the owner or copyright status, but this streamlining has some people calling foul. Under a provocative title suggesting that Google is "encouraging schoolchildren to steal photos," Steve Rubel continues to propagate the confusion between theft and infringement. No matter how many times we explain it, people just don't seem to understand that copyright infringement is not theft. Theft involves the removal of a rival good whereas copyright infringement makes a copy, leaving others' use uninhibited. Although the suggestion of expanding Google's Creative Commons filter is a welcome one, I doubt users who want to only use properly licensed content will fail to do so because of Google Doc's new feature. And those who want to use copyrighted images will do so whether or not they have to simply right click or open a new tab and search. All Google is doing here is making its perfectly legal features work better together. That's about efficiency, not "stealing."

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

Filed Under: graphics, infringement, searches, stealing

9 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Bouduine, 17 Sep 2008 @ 12:36pm

Part of the Process
This is simply part of the process of limiting the benefits of technology to create a false value in something. Its sad, but since DMCA has become more and more and more common, its like there are no boundries anymore.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Serge, 17 Sep 2008 @ 2:17pm

Re "theft involves the removal of a rival good whereas copyright infringement makes a copy, leaving others' use uninhibited" -- uh, what?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
CVPunk, 17 Sep 2008 @ 2:39pm

Re:
Too many big words for you?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
TPBer, 17 Sep 2008 @ 2:40pm

They will never get it..
Until it's way too late. Maybe we could send the FBI after the children, especially after they pass their corporate welfare bill supporting outdated business models. If it's on the net it's up for grabs no matter what laws are passed.

Maybe we should start the kiddos on TPB101, and train them right. Remember to always use Peer Guardian.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 17 Sep 2008 @ 3:00pm

If these people don't want they're images index by google they could always use a robot.txt /deny all. Ah but, thats the problem....they want the benefit of turning up on google web page searches.....
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Nobody, 17 Sep 2008 @ 4:15pm

Re:
If you steal something, the guy who used to have it can't use it anymore. If you infringe on it, he can still use it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 17 Sep 2008 @ 5:29pm

Wow, the Google has a monopoloy on stealing stuff off of teh intarwebs. What kind of truck do the use ?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
another mike, 18 Sep 2008 @ 4:17pm

credit where credit is due
what ever happened to citing your sources? do they not teach that anymore? when i was in school in the 80s and 90s, we lost points on our essays if we didn't include proper references. footnotes, inline citations, bibliographies; they taught us several ways of doing it. A Writer's Reference was our textbook.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Blaise Alleyne (profile), 18 Sep 2008 @ 4:35pm

Re:
A handy guide: http://i28.tinypic.com/2m7xd85.jpg
[ link to this | view in thread ]