Supreme Court won’t hear case against Google Books

[DiapDealer]

I find the A.G.'s "blinded by the public benefits argument" argument to be quite humorous. As well as ironic considering some of the original principles behind the creation of copyright.

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I find the A.G.'s "blinded by the public benefits argument" argument to be quite humorous. As well as ironic considering some of the original principles behind the creation of copyright.

Not as funny as 'The price of this short-term public benefit may well be the future vitality of American culture'.

Oh, noes! No one will buy our books unless we maintain an artificial scarcity!

Seriously, dude - better access to our cultural past is GOOD for our culture.
Get a grip on yourself.

[Apache]

the Second Circuit’s ruling tells us that Google, not authors, deserves to profit from the digitization of their books,” said Mary Rasenberger

How is Google making a profit from the books?
Apache

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Apache

How is Google making a profit from the books?
Apache

Secret sales

Spoiler:

google.com/secret_sales[/URL]

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Apache

How is Google making a profit from the books?
Apache

Advertising and selling customer data. It's a huge business and how Google makes most of their money.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I find the A.G.'s "blinded by the public benefits argument" argument to be quite humorous. As well as ironic considering some of the original principles behind the creation of copyright.

Yea, it is rather ironic.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Advertising and selling customer data. It's a huge business and how Google makes most of their money.

That doesn't explain how they make money on the scanning of books. That explains how they make money whether they scan books or not.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by avantman42

My understanding is that trademarks have to be actively enforced, but copyright doesn't. If I'm wrong, please correct me, I'd like to know about it.

I don't know enough about US fair rights exemptions to know how water-tight Google's case was, but Wikipedia says that the appeals court found unanimously for Google. That suggests to me that Google had a pretty good case.

Once the original judge decided it was fair use, then it was pretty unlikely that he was going to be overturned. Copyright law, and specifically fair use, in the US has a lot of common law in it, i.e. based on judicial decisions rather than clear legislation.

Copyright enforcement is a civil action and thus requires the plaintiff to actively defend his copyright. So basically, you have to sue to enforce it. It wasn't the government going after all those grannies and little kids, it was the record companies.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Once the original judge decided it was fair use, then it was pretty unlikely that he was going to be overturned. Copyright law, and specifically fair use, in the US has a lot of common law in it, i.e. based on judicial decisions rather than clear legislation.

But surely, if Google's actions are a "plain and brazen violation of copyright law" as the Author's Guild says it is, the appeals court would have overturned the original decision?

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Copyright enforcement is a civil action and thus requires the plaintiff to actively defend his copyright. So basically, you have to sue to enforce it. It wasn't the government going after all those grannies and little kids, it was the record companies.

Then I misunderstood your point. I thought you meant that a copyright owner could lose their copyright if they didn't actively enforce it. I believe that's the case with trademarks, but not copyright.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That doesn't explain how they make money on the scanning of books. That explains how they make money whether they scan books or not.

You search for text in the book, google books shows up. you click on it. You see ads, Google sells the fact that someone looked at the book to people who are interested.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by avantman42

But surely, if Google's actions are a "plain and brazen violation of copyright law" as the Author's Guild says it is, the appeals court would have overturned the original decision?


Then I misunderstood your point. I thought you meant that a copyright owner could lose their copyright if they didn't actively enforce it. I believe that's the case with trademarks, but not copyright.

One never knows what a judge may decide. Failure to defend a copyright might very well land a work in the orphaned works pile. Orphaned works is something that the legal system is struggling with. The abandoned property principle is well entrenched in the common law legal system.

As far as your first point, don't confuse lawyer's rhetoric with the actual legal principles. Lawyers say all sorts of things in the press.

[fjtorres]

Nope.
They're not giving up.

Techdirt's report...
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...le-books.shtml

...notes they intend to sue again, in a different district court:

And, of course, the Authors Guild still won't give up, promising to fight this issue in other courts, hoping to get a circuit split that the Supreme Court will review:

Following the Supreme Court’s order, the Guild vowed to remain vigilant to ensure that the Second Circuit’s ruling is not taken as carte blanche for unfettered digitization of books. “The Second Circuit decision took pains to highlight that fair use was found based on the strict display restrictions and security measures currently employed by Google,” said Authors Guild general counsel Jan Constantine. “We’ll continue to monitor Google and its library partners to ensure these standards are met, as we will take appropriate action to ensure that fair use isn’t abused.”

To ensure that fair use isn't abused? Lovely people at the Authors Guild who outright declare themselves against public benefit, and then worry about the "expansion" and "abuse" of fair use. Does no one at the Authors Guild recognize that their authors are protected by fair use as well and many of them rely on it all the time?

[ottdmk]

It's not often I think this, but I can kinda see the Authors Guild's point in this one. Having a company make money off of your work without paying you a dime is a tough pill to swallow.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

It's not often I think this, but I can kinda see the Authors Guild's point in this one. Having a company make money off of your work without paying you a dime is a tough pill to swallow.

I guess I could see the merit in that point of view if Google was people for the privilege of viewing the excerpt, or selling the entire book and not giving the author any money, or even letting people view the excerpt without linking to stores that sell the book.

Fortunately, it's not doing ANY of those things.

Shari

[ApK]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

It's not often I think this, but I can kinda see the Authors Guild's point in this one. Having a company make money off of your work without paying you a dime is a tough pill to swallow.

So if a professional literary critic writes a review and quotes an excerpt, he should have to pay the author?

A profitable ad-supported web site that hosts reviews and discussions should have to pay if users cite excepts in posts?