18 Comments

1. PacRim Jim:

Authors should capture all of Googles web pages in real time and post them on their own site. Turnabouts is fair use.

Sep 23, 2005 - 9:54 pm 2. lindenen:

I still don’t get the problem with this. It sounds just like what Amazon has done with its search inside the book feature. Does anyone really believe they’ll make whole books available online for free? I hate to accuse the Authors Guild of being a bunch of luddites, but if the shoe fits…

PacRim Jim’s post makes no sense to me either. Given how often Google changes and the fact that when you use Google, what comes up on there is determined by the user… I don’t get it.

Sep 23, 2005 - 11:31 pm 3. Richard Nieporent:

Roger, I have to disagree with you on this controversy. The key point is the last one:

5. Authors (and the Guild) aren’t opposed to making their works searchable online with a proper license. With a proper license, in fact, far more than “snippets” could be made available to users. The opportunities are boundless, but it all starts with a valid license. This is no big deal, really; businesses large and small sign license agreements all the time.

This is not an issue of principle, but one of money. They don’t really object to Google making electronic copies of these books as long as they can profit from it. I don�t have any problem with the Authors Guild looking to make money for their authors but don�t couch this controversy in terms of principle.

The way I see it, there is no way that this project will hurt the sale of books. Nobody would buy a book just to look up a phrase. Most likely they wouldn’t even know which book the phrase appeared in. This disagreement can be simple stated as follows: if we can’t make money from it then you shouldn’t be allowed to do it even though what you are doing has absolutely no adverse impact on the sale of our books. In fact, as a number of people have pointed out, this project is likely to stimulate the sale of books. Thus, it appears that the Authors Guild is being short sighted, but that is the nature of a union/guild.

Sep 24, 2005 - 5:52 am 4. Roger:

Richard Nierporent, whoever said it wasn’t about money? Not MOI!… Indeed it is.

In general this is a problematic time for writers with the publishing industry luffing, newspapers in decline and online companies [I knew he was going to bring Pajamas Media into this.-ed] just beginning to gear up. I’m sure you would agree that the principle of writers being paid for their work encourages good writing and improves literature, etc.

Sep 24, 2005 - 6:57 am 5. Syl:

The Authors Guild is just jealous that they didn’t think of it first.

Even if the idea had occurred to them, they have neither the business savvy, nor the resources, nor the willingness to take the risks involved in a venture such as this.

If the Authors Guild is so upset that Google will make a profit, then they should invest the union dues in Google stock.

And if they’re not willing to purchase shares, then I think a dog-in-the-manger analogy could be applied.

Sep 24, 2005 - 7:03 am 6. Richard Nieporent:

Roger, I am not against authors making money (although I just agreed to write a chapter for a Handbook of Computer Networking for free. Don’t ask!). The last part of my comment is the key point. Their position is counter-productive. If the Guild had more sense they would see this as free advertising for their books. More books will be sold by having this search capability than by not having it.

Sep 24, 2005 - 7:48 am 7. TedM:

Does anyone know the technical differences between Amazon and Google?

Does anyone know if Amazon pays a fee to the publisher for the look inside book feature or if it is covered by contract?

Sep 24, 2005 - 8:16 am 8. Roger:

TedM, I would say probably not. I have many books on Amazon and have never seen such a payment show up on any of my statements. The big difference is that Amazon is selling your books. Google is not. If Richard Nieporent’s point (above) is accurate, however, that difference is moot.

Sep 24, 2005 - 9:15 am 9. Charlie (Colorado):

That Google chooses to present users with short selections from your work doesn’t change that.

Um, as usual I’m not a lawyer, but I would think that it does. It’s well understood that reviewers have a fair-use right to excerpt a work; how does Google’s use differ from that? (You could easily make an argument that Google is effectively making an automated “review”.)

What’s more, let’s assume as a hypothetical that what Google does with these books were also applied to other copyrighted works, ie, web pages. (Under the terms of the Berne convention, they’re all works of authorship and under copyright from the moment of composition.) If Google can’t read in and index those works without an opt-in instead of an opt-out, the whole notion of search engines goes away.

I would think Google has an obligation to prevent someone from doing successive searches in a way to obtain the whole book, just as libraries have some obligation (and Kinkos even more) to prevent someone from making a photocopy of an entire book.

Sep 24, 2005 - 10:30 am 10. Charlie (Colorado):

That Google chooses to present users with short selections from your work doesn’t change that.

Um, as usual I’m not a lawyer, but I would think that it does. It’s well understood that reviewers have a fair-use right to excerpt a work; how does Google’s use differ from that? (You could easily make an argument that Google is effectively making an automated “review”.)

What’s more, let’s assume as a hypothetical that what Google does with these books were also applied to other copyrighted works, ie, web pages. (Under the terms of the Berne convention, they’re all works of authorship and under copyright from the moment of composition.) If Google can’t read in and index those works without an opt-in instead of an opt-out, the whole notion of search engines goes away.

I would think Google has an obligation to prevent someone from doing successive searches in a way to obtain the whole book, just as libraries have some obligation (and Kinkos even more) to prevent someone from making a photocopy of an entire book.

Sep 24, 2005 - 10:31 am 11. Charlie (Colorado):

Dammit. Okay, Roger, I think I’ve got a partial answer; you might mention this to Charles. This time I double-posted because I had hit post (I thought) and the post apparently worked (since I did double it), but it never left the preview page. So I hit it again, and this time it did come back to the mainstream page. In other words, it’s falsely looking like the posting step never happened the first time.

Sep 24, 2005 - 10:34 am 12. Charlie (Colorado):

Authors should capture all of Googles web pages in real time and post them on their own site. Turnabouts is fair use.

But how you gonna bell that cat, baby? Google doesn’t even have its OWN pages stored; they’re generated from teh query.

Sep 24, 2005 - 10:35 am 13. cestmoi:

Google could be worth a trillion dollars and it wouldn’t make any difference to this argument. The bottom line is does a search engine have a right to be able to search a book for content so it can return a sentence or two? I happen to think it’s fair use of a copyrighted product. They’re not providing a full copy of the book, just an excerpt. To provide that fair use excerpt, they have to have have access to the entire work.This claim reminds me of so many other class action complaints. The last one I looked at was the iPod battery fiasco. Apple didn’t provide a simple mechanism for customers to replace their iPod batteries. Apple’s initial position was “buy another iPod.” That wasn’t acceptable to a lot of people so Apple temporized first to “pay us $100 to replace your $10 battery….” and then to “pay us $67 to replace your $10 battery…” People got irate, lawyers swooped in, formed a class and filed suit. Net result? People who were burned, including the early adopters who were out $270, got $25 for their grief. The lawyers walked away with $2.7 million.So if you want to argue about who is making money off of this issue, I assert it isn’t going to be the authors even if they win the suit – it’ll be the lawyers. The rest of us will be out of luck. There’s another service that Google will provide if they’re allowed to proceed – immortality. By digitizing and repeatedly backing up the books, the works will last indefinitely. Constraining the books to exist only in paper form guarantees that most of the works will vanish when the last copy rots away.

Sep 24, 2005 - 9:25 pm 14. Charlie (Colorado):

Tim O’Reilly (technical book publisher) has an interesting take on this.

Sep 24, 2005 - 9:49 pm 15. PacRim Jim:

@Charlie

Yes, I realize Google generates pages dynamically from data on thousands of servers. Better idea: Use the Google interface and all its trademarks. If Google fails to defend them, they will become public domain. Also, keep pages on all the top executives of Google, with photo, Google maps photos of their houses, directions to their houses, SSN, phone numbers, etc. They’ll get the idea and back off.

Sep 24, 2005 - 11:13 pm 16. TedM:

Following the link provided I came across this link http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/003992.php

Of interest is this statement:

Under the Print Library Project, Google plans to scan into its search database materials from the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford Universities, the University of Michigan, and the New York Public Library. In response to search queries, users will be able to browse the full text of public domain materials, but only a few sentences of text around the search term in books still covered by copyright. This is a critical fact that bears repeating: for books still under copyright users will be able to see only a few sentences on either side of the search term. Users will not see a few pages, as under the Publisher Program, nor the full text, as for public domain works. Indeed, a full page of the book is never seen for an in-copyright book scanned as part of the Library Project unless a publisher decides to transfer their book into their Publisher Program account, in which case it would be under the agreement between Google and the copyright holder.

If this is the case, then some of the questions posed in the previous thread here have been answered.

Sep 25, 2005 - 6:38 am 17. Charlie (Colorado):

Better idea: Use the Google interface and all its trademarks. If Google fails to defend them, they will become public domain. Also, keep pages on all the top executives of Google, with photo, Google maps photos of their houses, directions to their houses, SSN, phone numbers, etc. They’ll get the idea and back off.

What idea, that if you don’t like their position you’ll threaten them with identity theft?

Sep 25, 2005 - 7:41 am 18. MCP:

While understandable, Roger, your reaction is pretty much identical to the RIAA’s (except for the John Doe subpoenas, the heavy handed lawsuits, etc.). You fear the loss of revenue but fail to see the real opportunity. I have bought plenty of music because I heard it for free or downloaded a song – purchases I would never have made otherwise. Likewise, I recently read a public domain PG Wodehouse book and then bought an omnibus edition at B&N. Sadly, Sir Pelham will not benefit from my purchase but the idea is the same.

I do not read mystery’s so have never bought a Roger Simon book. But perhaps if I had a free one on my laptop and idle time in an airport I might read it. If I liked it I might buy a sequel. The only people who really have anything to fear from making their material publicly available is those whose work does not warrant a second look.

Sep 28, 2005 - 12:34 pm

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