Authors Guild and Google reach settlement: Millions of scanned books to be available.

[Taylor514ce]

Originally Posted by Daithi

Taylor514ce,

You seem to be confusing legal settlement with legal judgment. A judge did not rule against Google after hearing the case. Instead, Google decided to settle the case before arguing it in front of a judge and waiting for him to make a ruling.

Quite the opposite. Please carefully re-read my posts, if you choose. I am very cognizant that Google avoided judgment by means of this settlement. Make of that what you will. My opinion is that, knowing that they faced an adverse judgment, and not wanting to allow a precedent that undermines their entire business model, they chose instead to settle.

I've carefully read your posts, and it boils down to "we'll never know". Whatever you or I think about Google's actions and the impact on compensation and author's rights, it's very clear how the Authors Guild, publishers, and by extension authors, felt about it.

And, as long as Google can simply buy their way out of legal judgment, arguing the legality of their actions is moot.

[Daithi]

I suppose we can boil both of our arguments down. Yours seem to be "Google is no good guy and should be condemned for violating copyright laws." Mine is that "Google may or may not have violated copyright law, but even if they did it was not the type of violation I would condemn them over."

I doubt I will change your mind, and I'm pretty sure you’re not going to change mine. However, I will say that you do a skillful job of arguing your point of view.

[Taylor514ce]

My position is: Google is a corporate entity beholden to shareholders, with a dodgy record on privacy and copyright issues. They ride roughshod over copyright and compensation rights, and only make changes when challenged, said changes usually in the form of "throw money at people to stay a step away from the law".

This is not a company I trust to shape the digital content landscape.

[yekim54]

Here is an article that appeared in today's Washington Post regarding the Google settlement. The crux of the article is that Google's settlement sets them up to have a monopoly in book search services. Very few other companies will have the resources to compete with Google's deep pockets.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...110201721.html

[nekokami]

Yeah, well, no one else was even trying to provide book searching like this. Not the publishers, not any of the other search etc. companies, not Amazon, not any governments. So I'm not going to cry too hard over the "competitive advantage" Google has allegedly gained in this settlement when as far as I can see, no one wanted to compete with them.

[igorsk]

Actually, Microsoft was trying it too, but they went for opt-in instead of opt-out. Maybe that's why they couldn't compete with Google.

[Lexicon]

Originally Posted by igorsk

Actually, Microsoft was trying it too, but they went for opt-in instead of opt-out. Maybe that's why they couldn't compete with Google.

That's exactly why they couldn't compete. I won't waste time debating the legality of what Google did, I'll just say that I believe they chose the only course that had a realistic chance of success.

If your aim is to digitise all book content and make it searchable there is no point setting it up as an opt-in system, and there is no point at all trying to negotiate with rights holders directly for access to the content they hold under lock and key. Too many would refuse to participate or demand unreasonable royalties.

No, the only way to succeed in such a project is to go ahead and do it and then, afterwards, dictate the licensing terms to the rights-holders, with the force of an almost unlimited budget for legal defence backing you up.

It may seem like foul play to the rights holders but tough! Had they been willing to keep to the original spirit of copyright (by allowing works to fall into the public domain within a reasonable time frame) then such drastic measures would not have been necessary. They broke the contract first, to their benefit and to the detriment of the public. Google has broken the contract again, only this time it is the public that stands to benefit and the rights holders that lose out.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Yeah, well, no one else was even trying to provide book searching like this. Not the publishers, not any of the other search etc. companies, not Amazon, not any governments. So I'm not going to cry too hard over the "competitive advantage" Google has allegedly gained in this settlement when as far as I can see, no one wanted to compete with them.

Er... Well, there was Project Gutenberg and Distributed Proofreaders (admittedly only for out-of-copyright books -- they don't have a legal budget!). The "Million Book project" kicked off by CMU's own Dr. Raj Reddy. A Microsoft effort whose name I forget. Some smaller efforts through some European national libraries (details are too hazy for me to remember -- damn these senior moments!).

Xenophon
(at Carnegie Mellon University "CMU")

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Er... Well, there was Project Gutenberg and Distributed Proofreaders (admittedly only for out-of-copyright books -- they don't have a legal budget!). The "Million Book project" kicked off by CMU's own Dr. Raj Reddy. A Microsoft effort whose name I forget. Some smaller efforts through some European national libraries (details are too hazy for me to remember -- damn these senior moments!).

Xenophon
(at Carnegie Mellon University "CMU")

Project Gutenberg and Distributed Proofreaders aren't comparable, as they aren't really book search efforts. PG seeks to create electronic copies of works in the public domain, originally in plain text and increasingly in HTML fiormats, and Distributed Proofreaders seeks to support the effort by proofing texts of works in progress. (Some of the earlier PG contributions of classics before DP came about are fairly dire in terms of quality. Ask HarryT about the state of the Dickens offerings...)

Once they are up on PG, they *become* searchable, but that's a fringe benefit.
______
Dennis

[SpiderMatt]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

Because it was illegal. Corporations acting in defiance of law because they are big and powerful enough to do so - I see nothing noble in that, unless we're using "nobility" in an historical sense.

I'm arguing morally. I don't consider morality and legality to be the same thing and find that laws these days rarely represent what I consider to be moral.

[mores]

sorry, didn't read any post except for the other thread that announced that google publishes "out of print" books.
There are a number of works from Paul F. Wilson that I'd like to read and that are, apparently, "out of print". Will I be able to read those ?

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

Quite the opposite. Please carefully re-read my posts, if you choose. I am very cognizant that Google avoided judgment by means of this settlement. Make of that what you will. My opinion is that, knowing that they faced an adverse judgment, and not wanting to allow a precedent that undermines their entire business model, they chose instead to settle.

I've carefully read your posts, and it boils down to "we'll never know". Whatever you or I think about Google's actions and the impact on compensation and author's rights, it's very clear how the Authors Guild, publishers, and by extension authors, felt about it.

And, as long as Google can simply buy their way out of legal judgment, arguing the legality of their actions is moot.

Sorry for jumping into this thread so late. That being said, I think it is important to remember that both sides have to agree to a settlement. Considering the stakes involved, I expect both sides settled because neither side wanted to take the chance that the settlement would go against them. Ultimately, I suspect that the Authors Guild recognized that a protracted fight on their part could not only go against them in the courts but could go against them in the court of public opinion (and maybe also in the court of authors whose works are out of print). Being that Google was not offering full books up on the internet, but only portions there of, this was definitely an area that fell into the legitimate realm of fair use. How the court might have decided would have ended up secondary to the fact that the public has been increasingly seeing media providers as being bullies.

One other thought... I would be very careful about claiming that the Authors Guild represented the authors. Certainly their position represents that of some authors, but it may not even represent the positions of all the authors who are members. Certainly there are some authors (for example ones who are taking advantage of the Creative Commons License) who believe that books should be more available than current copyright laws mandate.

One last thought. Was Google on shaky ground legally? I think the answer is an absolute yes. However, it was not clearly violating the law. The basic problem with fair use is that it essentially requires testing, more or less continually, to establish what constitutes fair use and what does not. Essentially it is the ultimate in "Better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission". So long as Google was not clearly violating copyright, it was up to the Authors Guild and the Publishers to decide they wanted to pursue the issue and for the courts to decide on whether or not it was legal. Google and the Authors guild both blinked so the question is still open legally.

--
Bill

[Taylor514ce]

Google was only offering "portions" online. Thus those who use those portions are within fair use. But Google themselves scanned entire books, for their own commercial purposes, some of which we know. But Google is in the content monetization business. Their act of scanning entire books was the copyright violation, not Google users' browsing portions thereof.

The rest of your post is well-reasoned and appreciated.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

Google was only offering "portions" online. Thus those who use those portions are within fair use. But Google themselves scanned entire books, for their own commercial purposes, some of which we know. But Google is in the content monetization business. Their act of scanning entire books was the copyright violation, not Google users' browsing portions thereof.

The rest of your post is well-reasoned and appreciated.

I am not sure that scanning an entire book per say is a copyright violation. Certainly content shifting for personal use is perfectly legal; i.e. if I scanned a paper book and only used it myself, I am certainly engaged in a fair use of the book (in the same way that ripping a CD into mp3 files is fair use).

Likewise, the profit motive does not, in itself, make the action a violation of copyright. If I write a book review and quote portions of said book in my review, even if I am being paid for my review, I am not violating fair use.

Ultimately, I am arguing here that neither position is correct or incorrect. Fair Use is akin to the Measurement Problem in quantum mechanics (where a particle can be treated as being in two places at once until you measure it); you can't be sure whether a use constitutes fair use until it has been tested by the courts. Since Google was the first company to be sued for such a specific practice, we have no rock hard legal case law to judge the likely outcome of the case.

The other thing we need to keep in mind here is that purpose of copyright is to serve public good, not the good of the content providers. Now, that does not mean that the authors do not benefit from copyright; they certainly do. However, the benefit to the authors is the method not the goal. My personal feeling on this is that fair use should be allowed up until the point that it can be shown that an author or their publisher is actually harmed by the use, or actually, until the "harm" can be shown to be great enough to serve as a disincentive to create. Therefore, if someone makes a copyrighted work, that they do not have any rights to, available for free download (or for pay) on the internet, they are clearly violating copyright law since those who download the work now lack the incentive to purchase a legitimate copy. On the flip side, I am not sure any harm was done to publishers or authors by Google's actions.

Ultimately, the proper place for all works is in the public domain; the only real question is how much, and for how long should the authors of said works benefit. (A number of publishers can do manage to benefit from publishing Public Domain works so their needs are of secondary importance).

--
Bill

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

The other thing we need to keep in mind here is that purpose of copyright is to serve public good, not the good of the content providers. Now, that does not mean that the authors do not benefit from copyright; they certainly do. However, the benefit to the authors is the method not the goal.

(...)

Ultimately, the proper place for all works is in the public domain; the only real question is how much, and for how long should the authors of said works benefit.

i felt these points were important enough to repeat them. they seem to be largely forgotten these days, sadly.