Scan your books and search them on Google

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Andybaby

from the comment she made, she is actively trying to block these limited previews.

I don't see how anyone can read 50% of a book every other page and enjoy it. and frankly if they can, they deserve to get it for free and its less than that even.

As my comment indicates, Andybaby, I also do not see why CJ would wish to remove her book from being listed by Google Books... however I am sure everyone here recognizes that she has the right to do so.

And, in all honesty, though I pointed out that Google Books might lead to additional sales for her, I suspect she is among the upper echelons of authors who can probably afford not to give a damn about additional sales spurred on by this particular new sales venue.

The difference between her opinion and yours and mine, as Sirbruce pointed out, is very likely influenced by generational differences. I suspect if we are to convince her that her logic is amiss, it would be through softer and more positively focused entreaties... rather than anything else.

And I, doubtless along with many others on here, can vouch that she has no reason to need to hide her books from potential previews. Their quality is widely acknowledged, appreciated, and respected.

Maybe it just rubs her wrong that Google's activity was initiated without ever actively having sought her permission. If so, no matter how much we like Google, she is first and foremost simply "sticking it to" a somewhat arrogant company that thought it could bend the rules/law (i.e.: of copyright) further than others want them to.

Either way I'd rather CJ continue to actively and frankly share her views on what goes on in the eBook market and related areas than for her to withdraw for having found us a hostile and unreceptive audience.

- Ahi

[Andybaby]

Originally Posted by ahi

As my comment indicates, Andybaby, I also do not see why CJ would wish to remove her book from being listed by Google Books... however I am sure everyone here recognizes that she has the right to do so.

I agree with everything you said.

Google books is like walking into a book store, and on our side of the shelf, all the books on display have pages ripped out of them, not just 1 or 2. but 70%+ of the book. then instead of having just 1 counter, they give you many counters, and each counter has a different price for the book, some cheaper, some more expensive. but at the end of the day. if someone liked what they saw, they will buy it.

but you can just as easily walk into a barnes and noble and read the entire book(or perhaps not just as easily, for that you have to put on pants... at least in NYC.)

its its not Mildly silly of her to want to pull those limited copies, unless her beef with them is that they are LIMITED, and not full copies, which I know is not the case from her other posts on Piracy and digital sales that have not been friendly to her. I don't find it possibly thick headed of her to want to pull these limited previews, I find it damned stupid. short of pretty retarded, and long of superbly Insane. (that would be her pulling all her digital copies from the internet, suing anyone who even mentions her name, and other insane things to do) but Authors are weird, we all know that and I'm sure she can take some criticism

and CJ, don't listen to me if you want. All I want for you is to make money, boat loads of it. also sorry for my long winded rants. I've been reading Heinlein Lately, the Uncut version of Stranger, and when I read I fall so heavily in that I start talking like the characters... at least with heinlein(its almost impossible to talk to me if I've recently read Moon is a Harsh mistress). so sorry if I come off sounding a bit like Jubal Harshaw or Lazurus Long.

I hope to one day fall into one you're your books in the same way, but I don't want to Enter blindly into it, or have to resort to piracy just to sample your writing without going to the library. Which just like piracy is a lost sale.

Point, Samples are a Good thing! that is why your first hit of cocaine is free!

[Gideon]

I only have a limited opinion about this...

First - no book I cannot get a sample of will ever be purchased by me. Ever. And I buy a LOT of books. On my Kindle I better be able to get a sample, and if it's not I better be able to look at it either with Amazon's viewer or Googles. ESPECIALLY fiction. Non-fiction I often power through despite bad writing styles because the information is worth it. But fiction is meant to be pleasurable.

I would not agree that a sample should be a quarter of a book. I'd say for a long book at least two chapters and for a short one at least a chapter - introductions and forwards never counted as part of that.

Second - there is a 'public good' in having these texts all scanned and searchable. I don't mean previews here, but searchable. Google, whatever their morality, is doing a service in indexing all of this information and it should be. With genre fiction this isn't so strong an issue but with non-fiction and literary works (i.e. things you might be writing a paper about, etc.) it is vital. It's like having public libraries as far as I'm concerned, I'm not sure someone should have the option to 'opt out' if they are published. But I'll have to give it more thought.

If a writer doesn't want to be a part of it I certainly wouldn't support them as I'd perceive them as being antithetical to the public good.

[wayspooled]

Just so you know, what she was objecting to was that originally there was the full text of a number of her books on Google. What started her conflict with them wasn't the partial preview you see after she mentioned it here. That's just what was left after they took down what was essentially a free distribution of her work. All of that happened a couple weeks before she ever posted here. Another problem was that even though they didn't have license to distribute them, they wouldn't take them down until she proved she did. Hence the fait accompli they may be doing to a number of authors.

I think the google idea is dynamite. Very neat, but I don't think they should be doing that with the entire book to which they don't have license and someone else does. That to me is theft.

[wayspooled]

Originally Posted by ahi

Why do you want your books off of Google Books, CJ?

I am fairly certain they are not giving access to the full book to anyone...

Yeah, they were.

[Gideon]

It's understandable people wouldn't expect that, though. That isn't what is happening with most books (or supposed to happen.)

I'm sure things slip through the cracks from time to time. Her works are clearly in copyright.

[Ceili]

I do think there should be something to sample prior to buying a book, but I think a chapter or two should suffice. That said, I don't think half or three quarters of a book needs to be made available...

For all of the books I've sampled from Amazon, I have not purchased even one where the sample only contained the table of contents, or some reviewers comments. Put a chapter or two up and I'll consider the book, otherwise... there's a lot more to read out there. Sometimes this one bites me in the ass as one of my previously favorite authors last 2 books have had samples full of comments about their books...none of the book, just some one elses opinion about the book... if I want to read that, I'd just look up that particular critic and find it myself. And no, I didn't buy the books.

In the end, it should be up to the author to decide how and what they want out there. They just need to understand that what they put out there will have a major impact on what comes back to them.

[Krystian Galaj]

What Google's doing in this case is consistent with workings of many sites on the Net - I'm mostly familiar with image holding sites like photobucket, imageshack, and countless others - they allow the users to upload all images, then remove those which has been reported as copyrighted. Google is just most visible of such sites here.

(this not just about Google and boooks) I don't have an opinion on legality of it, I merely say that it's a beneficial model from the viewpoint of the public domain. It allows for the works that are abandoned by their authors to wind up in public domain, where they should be, before the last copy of them is gone, and assures that the work that needs to be done to maintain copyright of the works is done by the party most interested in doing the job well.

I believe that if Google could make the process of making sure the copyright of the work is held by the party contacting them instantaneous, they would. As I don't believe the copyright period (as long as it is now) is the best option, I welcome Google's initiative as natural workaround for it, active in cases where no one wants to move a finger.

I hope the publicity provided by CJ Cherryh's blog and other articles generated additional sales that outweigh the losses that really occurred as a result of Google showing the books for a period of time in their entirety, and the loss of time spent of putting together copyright claims, and that future sales caused by the presence of those books on Google will be higher than they would be if authors waited years before putting the books on some accessible site.

[cjcherryh]

Unfortunately as I understand it, the scan is total, and the selection offered at each load is random. This amounts to use far in excess of fair use, and if I do not legally protest such a non-licensed use I weaken my case to pursue any random pirate who decides it's ok to scan them. Plus if he wants to save himself a lot of scanning effort, he can, I understand, simply log on several times and have massive amounts of the text pre-done for him.

While Google's notions may be noble, the use made of the scan, given the number of pirates out there, is not necessarily so. Amazon offers free looks into many of my books, as do I on my own sites: I have no trouble at all with that, nor do I get any 'payment' nor ask any for Amazon's 'free look'. The issue is whole book scan and the capacity for misuse.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by cjcherryh

Unfortunately as I understand it, the scan is total, and the selection offered at each load is random. This amounts to use far in excess of fair use, and if I do not legally protest such a non-licensed use I weaken my case to pursue any random pirate who decides it's ok to scan them. Plus if he wants to save himself a lot of scanning effort, he can, I understand, simply log on several times and have massive amounts of the text pre-done for him.

While Google's notions may be noble, the use made of the scan, given the number of pirates out there, is not necessarily so. Amazon offers free looks into many of my books, as do I on my own sites: I have no trouble at all with that, nor do I get any 'payment' nor ask any for Amazon's 'free look'. The issue is whole book scan and the capacity for misuse.

CJ, I'm fairly certain that Amazon.com's preview is (or has recently enough) been usable to "download the whole book" in rather the same way that Google Books makes it possible.

If in fact the danger you perceive from Google Books is real--and most on here would dispute that--you should no more countenance Amazon.com's free preview either.

- Ahi

[bgalbrecht]

I'd like to point out that there are actually two different Google Books programs, Google Library, which scans books at libraries, and either displays the entire book because it's in the public domain, or a 3 line snippet if it's not; and Google Publisher, where Google has an agreement with the publisher to make available some portion of the book at Google Books. I believe Ms. Cherryh's books are available because of the agreements Google has with her publisher, and this would explain why she's finding it hard to get Google to remove her books.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by cjcherryh

... if I do not legally protest such a non-licensed use I weaken my case to pursue any random pirate who decides it's ok to scan them.

While I'm not a lawyer, I am a copyright law fanatic; it's my understanding that this is emphatically not the case.

Trademarks are weakened by allowing unauthorized use; copyright is not.

Trademarks are weakened by copies because what trademark protects (theoretically) is "brand reliability"... you know if you buy a Kodak, it's held to a certain standard of production, a certain range of products. If Kodak allows random street vendors to sell "homemade Kodak pinhole cameras," the public loses its sense of Kodak as selling whatever quality-level Kodak insists on.

However, copyright doesn't work that way. Multiple copies, authorized or not, do not "dilute" the original, because copyright isn't based on the public's right to an "official" version; it's based on the copyright-holder's right to control--or not control--copies, in order to encourage creativity and public distribution of works.

For a lot of big-name copyright suits, it's about the same; Disney doesn't spend a lot of time talking about the difference between copyrighted Mickey and trademarked Mickey. But for most authors, there's a big difference, and it is:

You can allow any number of unauthorized copies that don't bother you (often, by not causing commercial damage... the college student who quotes one of your books extensively to discuss themes in sci-fi isn't costing you any money, regardless of the word count involved), and still have your full set of rights to go after copies that you consider problematic.

[Crusader]

I doubt Google book search would be detrimental to sales by authors. In fact I've found it very useful to see if a particular book would be something I like since it's very rare that I can actually visit a physical shop.

The chance that a "pirate" would try to repeatedly load and copy from Google's scans is highly unlikely since the chance that they'll get the pages they need on each reload would be pretty low. It would be much easier for them to scan it themselves or find an already availble version on some file sharing sources.

I've imported the ISBN's of most of my books (mostly older Sci-fi) and find it a nice tool to have an online catalog of the books I own. From the 73 books only 2 have previews (limited) available and none have a full search facility.

[cjcherryh]

Thank you all for your rational response to my views. I'm pretty sure there is no agreement between my publisher and Google. And I'm very glad Google has modified their practice. It was a silly thing they did: I can't believe their legal department told them this was ok.
The e-book market is the Wild West. Actually Fictionwise and Amazon both had copies of my books up before there was an agreement with my publisher. I've personally chased down 'free distributors' (let's at least be courteous to them, since they have desisted at my request) from offering copies for sale or free download---at the rate of about one a week. You may imagine a working writer has very little time to pursue this sort of thing, and real pirates are a constantly moving target, though small. Google is so massive and universal, they actually pose more of a legal threat---ie, in law, if you've acquiesced to a thing (permitted it after knowing about it by failing to do anything about it) you've put yourself in a very poor position to complain about it in the event somebody else does it. So once officially notified, I was pretty well obliged to defend. I'm entering the market myself, with my backlist, and by what I see of pirate quality, I think the best counterattack is the production of better quality non-DRM copies. I have always had faith in the honesty of my readers, and feel if given a real and reasonable alternative to the pirates' bad copies, they'll rather have the real thing. Which is a little off-thread. Let me get back to it by saying I bear Google no ill will, and I think they do not have bad motives. The situation with official notification from the lawyers just put me in a position where I have to take some action or decline to act, the latter of which is not a good legal choice.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by cjcherryh

I'm entering the market myself, with my backlist, and by what I see of pirate quality, I think the best counterattack is the production of better quality non-DRM copies. I have always had faith in the honesty of my readers, and feel if given a real and reasonable alternative to the pirates' bad copies, they'll rather have the real thing.

That's excellent news. I'm delighted to hear it!