Google Asking For Help In Making Sure Public Domain Books Are Recognized As Public Domain

from the good-to-see dept

Wed, Sep 22nd 2010 7:53pm — Mike Masnick

Recently, we wrote about how some book publishers appeared to be using public domain books from Google to make their own books (which is mostly fine), but then telling Google that its books were copyrighted, causing the full versions to disappear from Google -- which is not cool at all. Perhaps in response to this, apparently Google is now asking people in their forums to identify books within Google Books that are in the public domain, so that Google can investigate and see if they should be opened up as public domain books (found via Glyn Moody). I don't know if this is a direct response to those earlier complaints, but it's always nice to see a company not just respect the public domain, but do its best to make sure what belongs there is properly included.

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: books, copyright, public domain
Companies: google

21 Comments

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

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2010 @ 8:17pm

Google should also give us the names of those fraudulently claiming copyright on public domain works. Sure, our broken legal system probably won't do anything to them, but at least the court of public opinion can know who they are.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2010 @ 8:19pm
  
  Re:
  court of public opinion is so much more effective, I sure hope they release the name
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Hephaestus (profile), 23 Sep 2010 @ 6:43am
    
    Re: Re:
    " I sure hope they release the name"
    
    name should be Names. Its alot more than just one company doing this.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Laurel L. Russwurm (profile), 22 Sep 2010 @ 9:55pm

good news
Just think how much easier copyright would be if it only ran 5 years.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Hephaestus (profile), 23 Sep 2010 @ 7:14am
  
  Re: good news
  Just think how easy it would be if we could tell who actually owned the copyright. I mean if people actually had to register and re-register a work for it to be copyrighted.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ric, 22 Sep 2010 @ 10:10pm

Similar things are happening with songs, too
A couple days ago I was looking through the blues section at the Audio Archive ( http://www.archive.org/details/audio ) at the Internet Archive, and noticed that one musician had placed a note that three different radio shows had played a song of his that he had placed in the public domain and then claimed copyrights on his song and he was threatening to leave the notice in the description until Archive Org started sticking up for the public domain rights in their collections.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2010 @ 12:46am

so IP Maximists(sp) think that file sharing is theft even though file sharers only take a copy of the software/movie/book/music they share, but they have no problem in taking work off the public domain and claiming it there own?

id love to see there logic behind it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Lolocafera (profile), 23 Sep 2010 @ 5:23am
  
  Re:
  Easy: the very notion of public domain is blasphemy to them. That's why they push regularly for the duration of copyright to be made longer and longer.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2010 @ 4:02am

I have just such a case.

http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2010/09/05/public-domain-parasites-2/

Although the issue apparently was an error on the Google's part.

But just to be sure I keep an eye on that publisher.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
mcvooty (profile), 23 Sep 2010 @ 5:14am

Don't rush to judgment
More information is needed before objecting to what publishers may or may not be doing. If I take "Hamlet" and add annotations, the result is a new work under the copyright law and I can claim copyright in it...no one can copy my book, at least not with the annotations. That doesn't interfere with everyone's continued right to copy Hamlet, per se.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- DH's Love Child (profile), 23 Sep 2010 @ 5:29am
  
  Re: Don't rush to judgment
  If you read the linked article, the companies are not adding anything. All they are doing is binding and printing it and then claiming copyright so that google doesn't show the whole book.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2010 @ 8:35am

public domain
it varies per country
so you need to create a flag per country and hten allow the book to be seen or not seen
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
PRMan, 23 Sep 2010 @ 8:44am

Movies too...?
How about Steamboat Willie, Google? That should be in the Public Domain.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
TJGeezer (profile), 23 Sep 2010 @ 9:25am

Greed Is Good Dept.
C'mon, all you critics, lighten up. Don't you realize that, in the U.S. at least, corporations now own the government, courts and all? They do whatever the hell they want and the public interest has nothing to do with policy or anything else, not even in their rhetoric. That does it for the basis of the public domain. In the spirit of the sorts of people who preface irrelevant remarks with a faux long-suffering "Sigh," I must say it is only right that they steal from the public. After all, they have money, they have power, and they can.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Goog watcher, 23 Sep 2010 @ 10:54am

Public domain = $ for Google -- DUH!
You're kidding me -- you think this is somehow NOBLE?

Wake up, readers -- Google makes money from Pub Domain because they don't have to pay for the rights to the books. _This makes for more "free," ad-supported browsing, which means more ad revenues for GOOG, the great commoditizer of everything they do not own._

And btw -- do you think TechDirt doesn't know it?

To paraphrase the old Clinton campaign, it's the advertising, stupid.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2010 @ 7:15pm
  
  Re: Public domain = $ for Google -- DUH!
  and what's wrong with that?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Michael Ward (profile), 23 Sep 2010 @ 12:11pm

Kessinger / Google / Full View
Kessinger's been doing PD reprints for years. In the early days they photocopied the pages and provided hard copy reprints of books that were difficult to find.

With Google and others providing usable electronic texts, it's gotten easier for Kessinger to find source material. In a lot of cases, I suspect, the physical books don't even exist until someone buys a copy -- and at that point the copy is printed off and sent to the buyers.

The two key issues are:
(1) Is Kessinger claiming a bogus copyright? -- and if so, what are the penalties?
(2) Is Google actually keeping a PD book out of Full View because someone like Kessinger claims a copyright, or is it just poor management at the Google project?

Regarding (2), Google has a history of screwing up the titles and descriptions (aka metadata) so that it can be impossible to find, e.g. all the volumes in a series. Some volumes may have variant titles; some may be in Full View while others are just not available, though already scanned; and some may simply be missing.

The Goog needs to hire a few hundred librarians just to figure out what they already do have.

On their behalf I will now add that trying to figure out which books can be read in Full View, in which countries, has to be a nightmare of awesome proportions.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
bowerbird, 23 Sep 2010 @ 1:32pm

(what a treat to see michael ward's name right above! hi michael!)

anyway, here's the comment i left over at google...

sofia-

i'm so glad google is finally addressing this issue! thank you!

but let us not be disingenuous, ok? the vast majority of books
that are being hijacked from the public-domain are being lifted
by a small number of companies. google knows who they are.
you don't need us to identify the books one by one, individually.

-bowerbird
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Michael Ward (profile), 23 Sep 2010 @ 2:25pm
  
  Re: bowerbird's comment
  bowerbird! hey, where you been, buddy? Great to see you're still raising a ruckus.
  
  OK, back to work: Are there specific examples of Kessinger, for example, causing a book to be removed from Full View because of a claimed copyright, or is it just folklore? So far we're long on fears and short on examples.
  
  I love what Google is doing in making rare volumes available for easy download, but am continually dismayed by the erratic way in which they do it: missing or distorted pages, broken sets, and volumes which are clearly in the PD in all countries but not available in Full View.
  
  It's that last consideration we're talking about here.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
bowerbird, 24 Sep 2010 @ 1:57am

michael said:
> bowerbird! hey, where you been, buddy?

hanging around... :+)

> Great to see you're still raising a ruckus.

i'm a hit-man, brother -- honesty, integrity, and truth...

> OK, back to work: Are there specific examples
> of Kessinger, for example, causing a book to be
> removed from Full View because of a claimed copyright,
> or is it just folklore? So far we're long on fears and
> short on examples.

i'll go ask over on the project gutenberg listserve.
i am quite sure they can give us some examples...

-bowerbird
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Greg Weeks, 4 Oct 2010 @ 7:12am

Some examples:

http://books.google.com/books?id=OX_iLb0BhNsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=h.+beam+pi per&hl=en&ei=Zd-pTISEJsWclgeZhJG3DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&a mp;ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=GGKTepppkQIC& printsec=frontcover&dq=h.+beam+piper&hl=en&ei=Zd-pTISEJsWclgeZhJG3DA&sa=X&oi=boo k_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books. google.com/books?id=CGzmeBFvFz0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=h.+beam+piper&hl=en&ei=Zd-pT ISEJsWclgeZhJG3DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBg#v=onepa ge&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=vltqKql2RvkC&printsec=frontcover&dq =h.+beam+piper&hl=en&ei=Zd-pTISEJsWclgeZhJG3DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result& ;resnum=8&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=h. beam piper&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=uhmzsKd5xY8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=h. +beam+piper&hl=en&ei=Zd-pTISEJsWclgeZhJG3DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&re snum=9&ved=0CFEQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q&f=false

If you want the links to the PG texts these were produced from I can provide those too.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]