Hosting Matters runs about $1 per GB (between 50 cents and $1.30, depending on the plan).

At around 140-150KB total, we’re talking about 7000 pages per GB, so between 7 and 13 millicents per page.

(If he’s using gzip compression, cut those numbers in half.)

Knuck, you did a good job covering the issues.

The comments came down on the two sides of the issue which divide us politically. Individual rights versus group rights. I side with the owner of the property. Others seem to believe in one way or another that they have a right to someone else’s property.

I don’t think this particular topic illuminates the fundamental two sides of an issue that divides us politically at all. It is far more complex than that.

Copyright and patent law, however, are pretty good topics for discussion re: “individual” vs. “group” rights. It is completely clear, I don’t see how an argument can even be raised otherwise, that copyrights and patents have, since the concepts were codified into laws and regulations long, long ago, been created specifically to register an “individual” right of “ownership” of “ideas” with the express intent that the right of ownership of the “ideas” will pass, upon some expiration of some time limit, to the “group”.

“Individual” rights, and even ownership of “property” are everywhere and in myriad ways subject to limitations in the interest of the “group”. And he concept of “fair use”, whether known by that name or another, are all around us. Zoning law and building codes place restrictions and requirements on the use of one’s individual property presumably for the good of the “group”. We cannot, at least not in all cases, use our private property however we see fit. And even when we use it within the limitations imposed we are subject to doing so according to minimum standards.

And he concept of “fair use”, whether known by that name or another, are all around us. Just to pick a simplistic example, consider the sidewalk running along the front of many parcels of suburban real-estate. An individual owns the property, and the sidewalk, but everyone and their sister has the right of way to use the sidewalk.

I’m too lazy to go look up a specific case, but there are plenty of cases where individual’s property has been subjected to “fair use” by “groups”. The example that jumps to mind is the one where some individual property owner has allowed, over some “long” period of time, his property to be used for some purpose; say kids passing through on their way to school. The property is then sold and becomes to another individual who wishes to stop having kids tramp through on their way to school. It has been well established that this new owner of this “individual” property may not now deny its “fair use” as a pathway for kids going to school. The use of some portion of the individual’s property has developed a “fair use” that the owner may not withdraw from the group.

It doesn’t matter whether any particular one, or portion, of us believe such laws to be unfair. They are the laws. And it is ONLY the law that protects and restricts property rights.

BTW, I don’t know that copyrights and/or patents fit a legalistic definition of “property”.

But suppose you somehow manage to bypass all the tripwires and you end up with a book. Now what? You might be able to sell a few copies undetected but if you try to use the Internet to advertise the fact that you have copies for sale, you’ll get caught.

You might argue that you can’t compete with free books. Had Steve Jobs agreed with you, we wouldn’t have iTunes. Last I heard, he’s sold over 1/2 billion songs. Had the music industry had their way, we wouldn’t have the plethora of iPods and other mp3 players out there because everybody copies their music from somewhere.

The argument against Google boils down to whether you think most people are honest or not. I assert that they are and give two examples:

Go into a Longs drugstore here in California, you’ll see goods crowding the sidewalk. The checkout stand is buried inside the store, out of sight of the goods. It’d be easy to skip the checkout and just take the goods. Sure some people probably steal from the drugstore but the net increase in sales is positive otherwise Longs wouldn’t continue stocking goods on the sidewalk. If people want your product, they will pay for it as long as the cost isn’t onerous.

Back in the 18th century, if you didn’t trust people then you wouldn’t bet, as Jefferson and Franklin did, that people could be trusted to rule themselves with the vote. Lot of smart folks were betting against that experiment. Seems to me that Jefferson and Franklin made the right bet – most people can be trusted.

What you need to do is look at what possible “harm” Google is causing authors and artists. And frankly, I don’t understand the controversy. Authors should be kissing Google’s feet on this one, cause it is ultimately going to create more exposure and demand for their work once they are searchable. I hope Google prevails, but I am not counting on it.

Somewhere along the way, authors have gotten into their head that copyright is some property law written in stone by the Constitution. But it is not written in stone. Congress (and thus ultimately the people) has control over this law, and you need only look to the 1800s to see how short these copyright terms can be, and difficult to renew.

Copyright is a balancing act which should ultimately BENEFIT the public with more artistic output and a wealth of common culture upon which to draw. But already, we’ve seen the abuse going on in this scheme, where new copyright law is written which strips abilities from the consumer that they used to have only a few years ago. And the consumer is not really getting anything in return for this loss of capabilities.

I know what happens in politics when there is a backlash, and rarely is it pretty. That’s why I’m warning authors and artists that they better figure out ways to work with the consumer when new technologies arrive, instead of immediately phoning their lawyer or congressman. Their lobbying arms like the RIAA and MPAA will not be all powerful forever, and when they fall out of favor, the consumer will get his revenge for past wrongs.

Most of the comments were well put together and covered the issues. And everyone seemed to agree that there are complex legal issues which we are not competent to address.

The comments came down on the two sides of the issue which divide us politically. Individual rights versus group rights. I side with the owner of the property. Others seem to believe in one way or another that they have a right to someone else’s property. “Posted by: dsmtoday at 11:31 pm” is a prime example of that. Click on his name and you will be redirected to the NY Times and be able to read the Op Eds for FREE. He is unashamed to show us that he has made a passkey and can enter the Times back door and take their property. I know that he doesn’t consider himself a thief, but I do. He doesn’t want to pay the Times $50 a year to read the columns, so he just takes them for nothing. Well, we know what his price is. As the man said to the hooker, “We know what you are. The only question is the price?”

Dsmtoday isn’t alone. I know many educated, otherwise honest people, who are not poor, who believe that it is their right to copy music albums from the internet. They have the usual rationale. But it all boils down to getting something for nothing. Petty theft, so they convince themselves that they have some right to do it. If they don’t like the law, they just ignore it.

The problem with Copyright law and Intellectual Property rights is that they cover so many areas, what people might know about one specific area doesn’t necessarily cover a different but similar area. I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve tried to keep up with this in the past few years (I’ve done publication work, so it has been important). This stuff, on the whole, is just a massive mess, and, due mostly to wisely chosen influence, it’s far too protective of copyright holders. But this isn’t to say the Author’s Guild is wrong, or that Google is right.

This whole mess comes down, mostly, to this: “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;” Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution. Congress has the final say on what our copyright laws, but somehow they’ve been botching the job for about the past 20 years (though I’d guess it’s far longer than that). This is Bi-partisan bashing, too, and they’ve done a bad job of it. Our copyright laws need a pretty massive overhaul with a good deal of flexibility (or at least a note to look at these every few years).

However, this isn’t completely on-topic to the matter at hand. Google won’t win. It’ll only get worse for them if they keep pushing it up the Federal chain. The SCOTUS decisions in Disney and Grokster (I think those are the names) are pretty good indicators of how things are up at that level, even with the impending replacement of two justices.

The key point the case will hinge on is brought out in the ITworld.com link: “Still, Google is copying entire works into its database. “It’s not what’s delivered to the PC user that’s the copyright issue, it’s the fact that they have copied the entire work in the first place,” said Ross. “I don’t see fair use.”" It isn’t fair use, as they’re using a full copy of a copyrighted text, it doesn’t much matter if how much the end-user is seeing of it.

I think the idea is utterly brilliant and it would become a wonderful resource, but this isn’t going to fly. It’s sort of like someone using your land, and they argue that there wasn’t a “No Trespassers” sign posted, so they can setup shop there. Not actively persuing a copyright does not eliminate the underlying property rights. So I don’t see Google winning unless they get a really screwy set of judges (and don’t expect that every level). I’ll leave the way in which Google has acted for another time, but their attitude is starting to become serious issue. And, speaking of books, I have to wonder what Orwell would actually think about all this. The mind wanders about that question.

Before I finish, I just want to clear up some things from thibaud’s post.

- Bittorrent isn’t a compression technology. It’s a file transmission system (brilliant and, well, rather legal).

- Hanging around the “Undernet” enough over the years, I know that digital copies of books have existed since just about the time that Adobe’s Acrobat format took off. There are entire groups of people that trade electronic copies of books, and they’ve existed for years.

- Part of your assumption is that people aren’t consuming things as much as they used to, or in vastly different ways. This isn’t quite true. They’re just changing the locations of that consumption. Your reference to Hollywood is a bit off. Distribution has changed, not really how many people will see a film. The advent of the very nice $3-4,000 home “entertainment” system has shifted a lot of people out of the Theatres and into watching the movies at home. They receive just about the same quality of film experience but for less of a headache (or direct cost, actually).

A thread point.

- eBooks “readers” do exist, the problem has always been heat and comfort, actually. They aren’t fun to use, the batteries don’t last long, get really warm, and, mostly from low sales, are still rather expensive. I really want the technology to take off, but it’ll still be some time, if ever.

Copyright laws are already obscenely stacked against the public to the point where there is no recent public domain any more. The entire 20th century is practically closed off. Just you wait, though. After the terror wars are through, all it will take is another stupid copyright power grab by Hollywood timed with the candidacy of someone willing to use the copyright issue to grab some headlines. And talk about your ready-made populist push-button issue. Not everyone is poor, not everyone is jobless, but just about everyone deals with copyright issues every day as an entertainment consumer.

And when this happens, it ain’t gonna be a simple pushback – no way. Just like Walmart, we will be Rollin’ Back Copyright Terms, right back to the 1800s.

So a warning to authors and artists – STFU about minor technical violations of your copyright that make the consumer’s life easier. You come off as an arrogant wanker out to spoil everybody else’s good time.

Don’t anger the people. You won’t like us when we are angry.

Yeah, me too. I can’t figure out how I managed to double post two interleaved posts with an hour lag between the first and second, though….