Author's Guild Didn't Want To 'Pull An RIAA' But Still Misses The Point
from the it's-a-bit-better dept
Last week, in discussing its attempt to settle its lawsuit with Google over the Google book scanning project, the Authors Guild posted a rather interesting public letter, entitled To RIAA or Not to RIAA, That was the Question. In defending the settlement, it notes that it could have fought the lawsuit to the end, but that it might have lost. In fact, this is why I supported the idea that Google should have fought on, because it seemed like Google had a strong fair use case -- something the Authors Guild admits. Even though the Authors Guild says that it disagrees that the book scanning project was fair use, an awful lot of copyright legal scholars seemed to believe that it was, in fact, fair use.But the more interesting point is that the Authors Guild noted that even if it did win the lawsuit, that could actually make things worse, and it pointed to the RIAA's Pyrrhic victories over file sharing systems:
Our settlement negotiations went on with full knowledge of what happened to the music industry. The RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of America) won victory after victory, defeating Napster and Grokster with ground-breaking legal rulings. The RIAA also went after countless individuals, chasing down infringement wherever they could track it down.While I applaud the Authors Guild for recognizing that suing (and even winning) don't help you innovate and can backfire massively in driving innovation underground, it does still feel like the Authors Guild got the wrong message out of this. Despite what it claims above, the "innovation among copyright [infringers]" did not really "abate" with the introduction of the iPod/iTunes. While the Authors Guild is correct that offering a legal solution is better than offering nothing or fighting innovation, it feels like it's overestimating how much of the market transformation its facing is due to infringement vs. how much is due to economic forces that will occur even without infringement in the market.
It didn't work. The infringement just moved elsewhere, in unpredictable ways. Nothing seems to drive innovation among copyright pirates as much as a defeat in the courts. That innovation didn't truly abate until Apple came along with its iPod/iTunes model, making music easily and legally available at a reasonable price. By then, the music industry was devastated.
![Hide This Hide this](https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/topclose.png)
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: authors guild, book scanning, copyright, fair use
Companies: authors guild, google, riaa
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Translation
[ link to this | view in thread ]
HI LAZY artists
lets make using EVERY tool thats made by a person require a tax or license so that you TOO can be a copyright lazy person.
FactoryRIGHT will call it for factories and HAMMERTIME for hammers and tools.
YES YOU TOO CAN ENJOY that yacht building club
BE LAZY TODAY JOIN THE AMERICAN WAY
[ link to this | view in thread ]
edit note
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Why am I _not_ surprised?
So the MPAA, the RIAA, and the Authors Guild/Publishers all go down the same path, trying the same doomed remedies, getting their butts kicked, and then, rather than admitting they've dropped important bodily parts into a wood chipper, they can turn around and scream "It's the pirates! You've got to stop them!" For too many people in such organizations, seeing themselves as "right" is placed at a higher priority than surviving.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: HI LAZY artists
[ link to this | view in thread ]
yea and you too can use big words like a lawyer
YES LAWYERS thy rock we need a whole planet of them....mars anyone
[ link to this | view in thread ]
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100204/0125048040.shtml
*shakes head*
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
This is a communications-free zone? There's that word again, free.
What do we do? I got it!
Let's add nothing to the discussion by throwing out personal attacks disguised as useless rebuttals!
Oh TAMMY! You're so smart.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
TAM - "Court cases should be decided on the evidence presented."
Ima Fish - "You've never went to law school so you do not have a clue about the litany of rules of evidence and the centuries of case law interpreting those rules. It is a prosecutor's burden to prove his or her case through the evidence presented, not through inadmissible heresy or via "story" published in a muckraking newspaper."
etc - more of the same
Okay thats only one good point ... Its the only one that matters.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The justice department of URS (UnitedRIAA States)
The Justice departments of the URS rationale behind this is pretty obvious. What would happen if google went out and did the same thing to OOP (out of print) music and Video. I personally have a dozen bankers boxes of 78 records I bought at garage sales. As a guess I would say 70% of them are out of print and the only copies of them are old 78's. With no masters in existance if google book deal goes through this could open up ... GASP ... books, music, and video basically falling out of copyright.
Follow the money ....
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lazy Artists?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Lazy Artists?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Lazy Artists?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
http://www.riaaradar.com/
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Come Again? What Did the Guild Gift OP Works to Google?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Lazy Artists?
It would be one thing if I created a new comic book charater and had rights to it for a while. It would be quite something else for me to create a new comic book character and then my decendents 10 generations in the future are still holding and living off of the copyrights to it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Lazy Artists?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Lazy Artists?
You forgot the Disney movie "Song of the south"
[ link to this | view in thread ]