Google vs. Authors, Part 5

Eric,

I wholeheartedly agree with your opinion that this constitutes theft and infringement. Despite that, I know deep down inside that it would not, could not, stop me from writing. The muse would not allow it otherwise. The books I try to create are, first off and foremost, done for my own edification. Sales, positive reviews, ROE, etc. are all ancillary.

Some guys go out to their woodshop and build a chair. Other guys go into their garage and build a hot rod. I go into my office and build a book. Unless one does these things for a living, I think self-satisfaction is the primary motivating source.

Regards,
Paul

I may be out to lunch on this one, but I find it interesting that a company that is as “technically” astute and “cutting-edge” as Goggle could not develop a way to…

#1 Set up some sort of permission and rights-granted system that would give the author the power to grant or deny this process.
#2 Create a way to “control” scanned documents and make them “un-touchable” (i.e. physically protected – like a secure PDF format)
#3 Institute a cost-system that would be fair and reasonable to all parties involved. Such as an additional royalty system based upon views or downloads.

I know (as an AD in the magazine industry) that we sell just as many online eMag subscriptions as we do traditional printed Magazine ones. We use a special software and a vendor that converts the issue into a viewable electronic document. One medium feeds the other. Unfortunately, there are limits to what you can protect and everything we do has to go through legal w/ permission on our contracts that pay additional fees to the writers, photographers and artists for the second form of use. My books are also available in eBook formats from the publisher, and all of my years of work for Baseball-Almanac are available online in their archive website. In fact, I recently wrote the introduction (and am editing) a baseball history book by a well-known UK writer – that quotes quite a bit of my material. So as editor, I get to “police” my own reference material that he used. This is a rare and wonderful thing.

This whole controversy is unfortunate as there are some great Internet/Multi-Media programs out there (such as the “Valley Of The Shadow” project: http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/ ) for the archival and sharing of history. However, I’m pretty sure that Google is more interested in profits than preservation. This comes down to the techy-geeks vs. the history-buffs and the geeks have the upperhand.

Keep fighting the good fight friend! It’s good to have a lawyer (w/ integrity) onboard!

Perhaps no one has noticed it, but there has been an ongoing assault on the very concept of ‘private property’ in the United States for many years. Of course, originally it meant something tangible – such as one’s actual real property – but it has progressed to the point at which it affects other ‘property concepts’ including behavior. The New Jersey Legislature condemned lower middle class people’s homes under ’eminent domain’ not to build a bridge or a highway for the good of the community, but to give the property to developers who ostensibly were going to create shopping centers and other business areas in hopes of raising the economic level of the area. Local jurisdictions intrude into everything homeowners do to their property, often without any possible justification for the intrusion. For iinstance, in Huntington, if your deck is over 10″ off the ground, you must have a suitable railing of a certain height around it to prevent folks from falling off! And, of course, with every ‘improvement’ to one’s domicile or business, local taxes rise in response.

Therefore, is it any wonder that ‘intanglibles’ such as intellectual property (books, music etc.) are even MORE at risk from this particular assault? After all, if I want to read your book and don’t want to pay for the privilege even of getting up off my duff and taking it from the local library, what right have you to stop me? And what right has any author to ‘interfere’ with something like the internet simply to protect his work?

On the one hand, these two examples may seem diametric in nature. In the latter, it may appear as if the public is being given the ‘freedom’ it is denied in such instances as cited above with local government. In other words, instead of government ‘regulation’, there is a LACK of same that is permitting people to essentially break existing laws. But to me, this is all of a piece. It is an assault on the very CONCEPT of ‘ownership’. On the one hand, it is government interfering with our lives telling us what to do, how to do it and then charging us for the privilege of dealing with our own privately owned property. On the other hand, however, it is government PERMITTING an assault on private property by the public in order to further degrade and erode the very concept that one can OWN something that cannot be taken away or ‘shared’ at government’s whim. Whether these assaults are initiated by governmental authorities (eminent domain, excessive town codes) or by others (Google) and then PERMITTED by government (the ignoring of existing copyright laws), in effect, it is simply part of the same assault.

In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson’s first version spoke about the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty and PROPERTY which was changed for the sake, I suppose, of certain groups even then, to the Pursuit of Happiness. However, there can be no doubt that historically, an ESSENTIAL ingredient in our freedom has been the right to OWN things – own them without interference (other than that which is sound legally and reasonably) and without the threat of them being taken away by someone else without just and due compensation and only then if we are willing to part with them. This is what is under assault in this instance – among many. However, because the assault is so diffuse, not too many people are really aware of just how powerful and dangerous it is.

Wow. Lots of anger out there……..

Does anyone know of work being digitized even after the copyright holder stated they do not grant permission?
I know of no legitamate company making a large amount of a copyright work available for free download or viewing without having to pay a fee or without specific restrictions that the copyright holder agreed to. Google included.

Eric’s point about stealing is well taken, but is that really what’s going on? Napster was stealing. An entire work was being copied and given out for free without permission of the copyright holder…..but is Google making an entire work available for free without the copyright holders’ permission?

Much of the discussion about Googles’ Book Search derives from the age old argument of what constitutes “Fair Use”. This is an ever changing issue with the courts.
If taken to the extreme (copy half a book, use 30 minutes of a film, etc.), it obviously infringes on copyright. However, on the flip side, if one were to disallow the very idea of “Fair Use”, one would not be allowed to photocopy even one page of a book in a library. Even photocopying maps from books for Civil War Roundtable talks or tours could be seen as infringing on copyright (and in some cases it is, since the copies are being distributed in large numbers without credit or permission). Yet it is done quite extensively and without thought.

So the courts have tried to put a balance on just how much copying of material is allowed and for what purpose before it becomes copyright infringement. To complicate the issue, there is no clear answer (and my guess is it will always continue to be murky unless the rulings approach absolutes). Essentially whenever one copies anything that is copyright, one is taking a chance that the copyright holder will sue for infringement.

Before the digital age, “Fair use” was usually argued in Educational Institutions (such as UC) and Libraries. It has now stretched out into the general public.

It is not my intent to defend Google, however I must admit I have used the Google book search program (which is really what it is). Quite honestly, the Google search has given me leads on books that pertain to my research that I would not necessarily have known about because I can search for specific terms or individuals and determine in some cases if the reference is worth tracking down the book for. Google does not allow you to read large parts of a copyright work. In some cases you can read a page or two (and that’s after you log in to an account), in other cases you cannot read the page at all.
In my view, where Google’s real value lies is providing access to entire public domain works (example: Herman Haupt’s very rare 1864 Book on Military Railroad Bridges) allowing me to read them when I have time that otherwise would have taken hours in a library to read….If the local library had the work to begin with. However, even in the case of Public Domain works, the provider of the copy may not allow full access, but only excerpts.

In fact, Google’s policy states quite explicitly:

“Because many of the books in Google Book Search are still under copyright, we limit the amount of a book that a user can see. In order to enforce these limits, we make some pages available only after you log in to an existing Google Account (such as a Gmail account) or create a new one. The aim of Google Book Search is to help you discover books, not read them cover to cover, so you may not be able to see every page you’re interested in.”

In this case, based on the excerpt presented, it is obvious that Google and UC are pushing the “Fair Use” doctrine. It remains to be seen if they succeed.
That UC is allowing the digitizing of works in its library does not really surprise me as they have been in the forefront of “Fair Use” for years. However, the question becomes….are they violating any copyright? The article does not say what works are being digitized for public use. It may be that they will allow public use for public domain or university-owned works but only enrolled students will be able to access copyright works that permission has been granted for. Educational institutions get permission from copyright holders to allow on-line access to vast amounts of copyright material for enrolled students only all the time. So just digitizing it, doesn’t mean it will be accessible to the public at large, or that arrangements haven’t been made with copyright holders.

Now….having said all of the above, clearly the copyright holder should have the right to opt out of any digitizing program Or limit what is digitized (i.e. Amazon’s “look inside” idea), just as Eric has done with his works. Period. No one else has control of the right.
Based on the article stated above, I’m not sure that UC or Google is doing anything wrong. I guess if a copyright holder sues, the courts will decide.

Now, let me put my helmet on before everyone gangs up on me………..

A question: *What* is Google going to put online? Like others, I don’t
want to be seen as defending them, and as a published author I have
the same concerns Eric and JD have. *But* if what they are going to
scan in is stuff for which the copyright has expired (such as Battles and
Leaders, say), then I don’t see the problem. Now, there are some
interesting questions to ask here. If my local library has Eric’s
Trevilian Station book, I can go there and borrow it, and read it, and
perhaps this takes a sale away from Eric. One could argue (I wouldn’t)
that this is essentially the same as what Google is doing, if the right
to access the material extends only to folks with priveleges at the
appropriate library. But there is no question that the Internet is
putting a huge strain on issues of copyright and intellectual property
rights.

JFE