Despite ongoing legal wranglings, Google is still on the offensive against critics of its book settlement. The latest salvo is an Op-Ed in the New York Times by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. He goes over much the same ground that he articulated at a meeting with reporters on Wednesday: Google has done the hard work of digitizing more than 10 million books, while its competitors who oppose the settlement like Microsoft and Amazon have done nothing. “I guess they scanned 15 books,” Brin quipped at the meeting.
The main objection to the settlement is that it will give Google a monopoly on out-of-print, or orphan books. Brin swats that argument in his Op-Ed, writing:
The agreement limits consumer choice in out-of-print books about as much as it limits consumer choice in unicorns.
In other words, there is no choice in out-of-print books because for the most part they are simply not available other than in large research libraries.
Brin also points out that the settlement does not impose a compulsory license on unclaimed works, only a default license which can later be changed. Furthermore, he argues, as he did at the meeting, that the settlement is not anti-competitive because it does not preclude other companies from striking similar deals. In fact, it sets a precedent for them to do so.
Everyone agrees that digitizing these books is a good idea, and will help unlock the information hidden away in them. Brin quotes liberally from out-of-print books in his Op-Ed to make his point.
But Google is not digitizing these books so it can sell copies of them. They are out of print for a reason. There is no market for them as whole books. Their value lies in cutting them up into snippets and relevant excerpts, and showing those snippets along with search ads to people looking for related information. The reason they are valuable to Google is because they are a rich source of high quality information that will improve its search results, and in fact give them an information advantage over other search engines without equal access to the world’s books.
Brin’s attitude is that if Microsoft or Amazon want a similar corpus of digital information, they should go scan their own out-of-print books. Of course, there are other efforts such as the not-for-profit Internet Archive’s (which has scanned 1.6 million books), but they don’t have the same resources as Google.
The response, however, would be that the settlement gives Google a free pass against any legal liability for orphan works still under copyright protection.
On Wednesday I asked Brin, why not just open the settlement to other book digitizers to afford them the same protections? He said that would be “legally impossible.” After all, those rights aren’t Google’s to extend. But what about the Author’s Guild? Would it be willing to apply the same terms to other companies and book digitization efforts to help open up and distribute out-of-print books even further? How great would it be to be able to download millions of such books for free (or a token fee of $1) onto your Kindle and other devices?
Everybody wants to see that world happen. But first this legal hurdle must be overcome, and second other organizations must catch up in their book scanning efforts or Google should do the right thing and choose to license its digital book database to other companies that don’t compete in search like Amazon. Making all the world’s books accessible in digital form through more than just Google doesn’t have to be a unicorn fantasy.
Photo credit: Flickr/Eggybird
There is that Unicorn from that last Salvia Divinorum trip.
Back to reality.
Yes, in 20 years Google will have backed up your entire family photo history all searchable, then charge you $10 a month a “package” of data access ranging from navigation maps in your car to these scanned books that will then be attached to a “reading” algorithm named HAL.
was to be:
“then charge you $10 a month FOR a “package”
I must still be hanging with the Salvia people (joking here guys).
Alert:
You guys have serious scripting errors on your site. I need to have script debugging enabled in my browser (IE8) and the last few days I get 20+ pop-up error messages each time I load your page. It happens when the advertising loads on right side of page. Please address this issue asap.
Here are the details:
Webpage error details
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Timestamp: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 14:38:48 UTC
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“But Google is not digitizing these books so it can sell copies of them.”
“The reason they are valuable to Google is because they are a rich source of high quality information that will improve its search results”
It’s not about improving the search results. It’s about improving their profits. If Google really was concerned about the preserving the books they’d make a non-profit out of these efforts open to all. Spin as they like, it’s really all about the money.
Making profit is good, but doing something for the society at the same time is better. Thanks to Google.
Wikipedia shows when something is ‘really’ not for profit, and how the whole world can work together.
I hope big guys put all their muscles behind the Archive.org project – people will stand in line to help them. This could be another internet-like success ot atleast another Wikipedia. Where is Mr. Wales?
I think I’m with Google on this one. Access to out of print and orphan works is good. Google has put in the effort (and money) to digitize them, they should get some benefit.
As for other companies getting similar rights, why can’t Congress simply add similar language to some bill (they seem to put out of context amendments on virtually every bill anyway) that would extend the agreement to anyone who wants to participate under similar terms and conditions…
Google considers a book out of print if it is out of print in the US which would be the case of most books in another language than English. Using the same principle, a French company could consider about 90% of all US books out of print. Stupid and dangerous.
That’s not true. If you check the German Google Books page you will find a lot of German books only partly available, especially those after 1950, whereas old first editions of e.g. Goethe are freely available.
In terms of copyright, please further note, that translations do count as independent copyrighted works, meaning, that not just the original author has rights, but the translator as well. Hence the original works from 1875 might be free, however the latest translation from 1956 is not.
Furthermore, if I would look for an out-of-print book in Germany there are really not many options. Once I tried to find a book from the 1980s and the usual bookshops were unable to locate it, with their search engines using databases of German and European distributors. Nowadays the book is on Google Books, great, finally I can read it.
Brin says in his article: “Google has always supported and will continue to support” orphan works legislation that would extend to all providers the same rights that the settlement would extend to Google.
If people don’t want Google to have special status, they should pressure the US Congress and the legislatures of other countries to address this issue through legislation.
But, in the absence of orphan works legislation, it is better for humanity that *someone* does what Google is doing — preserving the record… Hopefully, the law will be changed so that others can soon and effectively compete to help in this process.
Google,
“Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.”
excellent piece
VERY immature comment from Brin…
OMG – are you saying that this fight is about money and not making information available to people? How vulgar!
Libraries are pretty much irrelevant now. People still have public money go to them – but they are just places where a few kids hang out waiting for parent pick-up. Barnes & Noble has more important books on their shelves. If you want information about how to do something the last place to find it is in a library.
It won’t happen – but it would be nice to take the government money that goes to building another empty building and put it into public digitization of books for everybody.
Wait! Did I just say that the government thinks logically about how to spend out money! Wash my mind out right now!
Current Copyright Law has a serious flaw, which is that copyright holders are not obligated to make available their work.
It is good for us as a people and an economy to give us (the people, the folks who grant copyright to the creators) a right to the work if the duty to provide is is abdicated by the copyright holders — even if it gives Google a leg up in the process.
Given that we aren’t going to requie digitization of all of this lost content, this is a pretty good second choice.
>>They are out of print for a reason. There is no market for them as whole books.
What the hell does that mean? Do you claim to know that every book that fell out of print did so because it lacked literary value? That is absurd.
And the writer should be ashamed for making such an absurd personal observation and throwing it out there like it was a scientifically proven point.
Frankly, I don’t see what the hoopla about the Google deal is about. Bringing people access to millions of books is about as terrible an idea as universal medicare. There is simply no downside.
> What the hell does that mean? Do you claim to know that every book that fell out of
> print did so because it lacked literary value? That is absurd.
> And the writer should be ashamed for making such an absurd personal observation
> and throwing it out there like it was a scientifically proven point.
Agreed! Come on Erick, you can’t honestly believe that as a respected writer yourself.
I am 100% with GOOGLE on this one, good job!
This is a monumental project that will benefit us all.
I know is about the money, everything is about money, but, somebody with the power and resources has to do it, we cant wait any longer for governments or public founds.
Where are the pharaos now? yet the pyramids still there.
Please realize, MICROSOFT and AMAZON, are trying to stop this for money too.
WHO IS THE BAD GUY ON THIS ONE ?
“companies that don’t compete in search like Amazon”
Uh, A9?
The only way for another company to get the same deal as Google would be for that company to go about systematically infringing the copyrights of others by scanning books without the permission of the copyright owners.
Microsoft started it’s own scanning project, but focused on scanning only those books that it had permission to scan.
Google ignored the rights of authors, might is right after all, right? Then Google got sued and the action got rolled up into a class action, which let them structure a settlement with only a few parties at the table, a settlement that only they can benefit from. To get the same deal, Microsoft or Amazon would have to decide to take the same approach and copy works without permission, hope that the lawsuits against them were consolidated into a class action and hope that the parties at the table would cut the same deal with them that Google got.
Although I admit that having orphan works available to the masses is a good thing, painting the Google settlement as something that came out of the “hard work” that others weren’t willing to do is a bit coy and throwing in the quip about scanning “15 books” is a very Bill Gates circa 1990 type of comment.
Google’s new motto – “We see your evil, and we one up it.”
Your attitude is pathetic and your conclusions suspect. MS stopped their program in May ‘08 because of a lack of perceived potential profit. Any other reason you are claiming is pure bullshit. MS is now claiming some moral high ground, but the impression is that they’d prefer no other company get credit for this project since they cannot justify expending resources on this issue. GOOG seems the only publicly traded company capable of looking beyond short term profits. It confounds normal people daily (as does craigslist).
Google wasn’t in the right to scan books without permission. Regardless of why Microsoft stopped it’s scanning, it wasn’t the company that was violating the rights of authors, that was Google. Microsoft did take the moral high ground on this one.
Sorry if logic confounds you, that must be because you’re “special.”
It’s completely retarded that a private company had to address the orphan works issue in the US, and I can understand both the DoJ’s ire and Germany and France’s objections.
However, at least somebody’s doing it. Our government is just plain way more corporation-friendly than people-friendly, and the EU’s somewhat the opposite. They move quicker on antitrust, too, which is why Apple got its ass handed to it over iPod/iTunes there while getting a free ride on the Bush Wagon here.
I’ve been a designer for over twenty years, BTW, and am intimately familiar with the problems of work just vanishing forever, because there’s only one copy of that old skating rink industry magazine in existence, and nobody can use any of the great photography and art inside because they can’t find the original authors.
I’m also a published writer and illustrator, and this concerns some books and magazines I’m in, so…I have lots of stake in this. And I’m totally behind Google. This is my big dream: One. Big. Library.
Oh, and I’m also familiar with the problems of books vanishing forever, just from being a lifelong eclectic reader and nerd. More and more quickly, these days – there’s virtually no midlist* left in America, really – books come and go. I edited a book like five years ago and it’s already out of print.
I’d really like that book to be in Google Books. Unfortunately, it’s a book of short stories and at least a few of the authors, I know, are on the other side of this argument. So…damn. Nobody can read the book and it’s a good book. It’s got a story by the guy who wrote Logan’s Run in it and a Poppy Z. Brite story you can’t find anywhere else.
I’m proud as hell of it, and nobody can read it.
–
*FYI, in case anybody isn’t familiar: the midlist is where most working fiction writers used to live. They didn’t write bestsellers, but their books sold well enough to keep them working and bring in an income. That’s almost completely gone, now – publishers have moved to the Hollywood blockbuster model. Sad.
For those people mentioning Google will charge you X amount of dollars a month to view these…
Have you used Google Books? Just wondering. Since when did Google charge the end consumer to view their available content? Maps, Analytics, Gears, Open Social, Android (granted, I did pay a one time $25 developer fee), News, Wave, Gmail, Docs, Calendar? They are all free. If I trusted it in anyones hands, it would be their’s.
I really don’t see the problem here. Nobody owns the copyright and Google scanned the books. If I remember correctly they teamed up with someone to print on demand with a freakin cool machine.
I’m not a Google lover but I don’t think there is something to see here. Please drive on people.