09-21-2009, 05:43 AM | #16 | |
Guru
Posts: 820
Karma: 11012
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Warsaw, Poland
Device: Bookeen Cybook
|
Quote:
I highly recommend you to read Eric Flint's series of articles on copyright and drm, linked to from here: http://www.ericflint.net/index.php/2...and-copyright/ He explains it much better than I can. |
|
09-21-2009, 07:15 AM | #17 | |
The Dank Side of the Moon
Posts: 35,872
Karma: 118716293
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Denver, CO
Device: Kindle2; Kindle Fire
|
Quote:
This is always the question, isn't it. Our (in the U.S.A.) phone system came about because the government granted a monopoly to the Bell System which has only "recently" been deregulated. Do we need something similar in the publishing industry??? Or ??? |
|
Advert | |
|
09-21-2009, 07:35 AM | #18 | |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 9,707
Karma: 32763414
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Krewerd
Device: Pocketbook Inkpad 4 Color; Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
|
Quote:
If an author/publisher doesn't allow any more prints of a book, then that's the end. But the problem with an orphaned book is just that, there is nobody who can demand payment for that book if it were to be republished (in any form). So, those books won't ever be reprinted just because you don't know where the rights belong. Imo, that's just sad. |
|
09-21-2009, 09:04 AM | #19 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,790
Karma: 507333
Join Date: May 2009
Device: none
|
|
09-21-2009, 09:31 AM | #20 | |
Wizard
Posts: 1,451
Karma: 1550000
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Maryland, USA
Device: Nook Simple Touch, HPC Evo 4G LTE
|
Quote:
1. At least the original rights holder, by agreeing to have the book published, has agreed at least to some degree to make the work available to the general public. Once a book is published and in book stores and public libraries, we have a right to read it. At least in the United States, no one, not even the author can rescind that right once the book has been published. 2. The Google Book Settlement is not about reading books for free. Google is planning on charging for access to copyrighted works and set aside a share of the profits for author or rights holder compensation (I do share the authors concerns that "overhead" might eat up most of that compensation... but that is a detail that can be worked out). 3. The biggest issue people seem to have is Google moving forward even if the rights holder to a work has not been identified. I agree that this issue is problematic from a legal perspective, however when one considers that literally hundreds of thousands of books are published every year, it becomes a practical impossibility to track down every author. Finally, I think the benefits are enormous and have yet to be fully appreciated by the public. Not only will it make less popular works more available to people who have interest in those works, but it will also essentially create a gigantic searchable database of information that can, I believe, be as revolutionary in its own way as public libraries or the internet where when they were first invented. -- Bill |
|
Advert | |
|
09-21-2009, 10:03 AM | #21 | ||||
Professional Contrarian
Posts: 2,045
Karma: 3289631
Join Date: Mar 2009
Device: Kindle 4 No Touchie
|
Quote:
2) The "fastest method" does not guarantee that all possible users will have the same rights to the materials. If the Settlement becomes the template, then the Author's Guild et al become the de facto gatekeepers, and there is no way to ensure they will offer the same deal and terms to anyone else. Plus, anyone else who tries to adopt a similar program will have delays in trying to put together a settlement. Quote:
Quote:
Second, see point 1) above. In a related point, just being the first to convert a text from analog to digital does not confer any special rights to you. If the law says you need permission to distribute and sell a given copyrighted text, that does not change just because you were the first in a land rush. Third, it will be more expensive for Google as they would need to contact rights holders again, but that's a problem they have created for themselves by jumping the gun. Fourth, as previously mentioned, other media have made the same digital transition for out-of-print materials without violating copyright law. I see no reason why a somewhat slow adoption of digitization -- especially when the infrastructure is so undeveloped -- allows for decades of copyright infringement. It would be like converting hundreds of thousands of vinyl records to CD's in the days when only 100,000 CD players were sold, insisting that the conversion process is "too slow," ergo the converter has the right to sell the recordings at the price they want, without asking the rights holder first. Quote:
• People just want the material to be available (regardless of copyright issues) • People don't want to wait for and/or work on legislation • Some view Google's actions and/or corporate philosophy as generally benevolent, or at least neutral • No one else has scanned this volume of material yet • People (wrongly, IMO) presume no one will ever engage in a similar project |
||||
09-21-2009, 10:58 AM | #22 | |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 5,185
Karma: 25133758
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA
Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)
|
Quote:
In the case of orphaned works, the wishes of the creator don't come into play. The creator's not available to ask whether or not s/he would like the book distributed. The settlement posits that since the public eventually has the right to free use of that content, and there's nobody to ask for limited use of it now, it's acceptable for someone to make it available now, with the caveat that it'll be removed or renegotiated if someone with a legal claim comes forward. (The fact that only Google is getting the right to make it available, is one of the points of contention.) In the case of out-of-print books, in many situations, the author and possibly the publisher would like the book distributed, but don't believe the return on doing so justifies the effort. They'd also like the right to negotiate the payments they'll receive, and the markets that will have access--and lack of those details is a good part of what the upset over the Google settlement is about. But very, very few authors, and pretty much no publishers, would rather that books vanished away from the public view entirely. And--in the long run--authors & publishers don't have the right to remove the content from the public. They have the right to restrict access to it for a limited time. The purpose of that restriction (in the US) is to encourage them & other creators to make more content. If the restriction is working the other way--is preventing other creators from remixing and transforming existing works, while allowing published authors (or more likely, their publishers) to reap financial benefits for extended periods without producing anything new--then laws & rulings that challenge those restrictions are potentially a good way around the problems of extended copyright. |
|
09-21-2009, 11:14 AM | #23 | |||
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 5,185
Karma: 25133758
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA
Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)
|
Quote:
They certainly didn't contact authors & publishers of fanzines, only some of which fall into their "periodicals" definition and are therefore exempt from Googlebook consideration. I don't think Google can claim to have made a good-faith effort to contact the entire class of "rightsholders of books, as defined by Google, currently registered as copyrighted in the U.S." They made an effort to contact many organizations with a presence online, in the hopes that those rightsholders would hear about the case. I haven't heard that they sent any physical letters to authors. Quote:
There are thousands of movies languishing in storage closets, because the rightsholders to the soundtracks or scripts can't be found to get permission to convert them to digital formats. Film doesn't last forever--those movies may be dust by the time copy protections go away. I've got a couple-dozen vinyl records, and several dozen cassettes, that don't have any digital versions available. The vinyl might outlast copyrights (if they're not extended again); the cassettes won't. Quote:
FWIW, I haven't decided where I stand on the Google settlement. It's a huge pack of complicated issues, and I want them all dragged out in public before any final decisions get made. |
|||
09-21-2009, 12:35 PM | #24 |
Wizard
Posts: 2,549
Karma: 3799999
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: O'Fallon, Missouri, USA
Device: Nokia N800, PRS-505, Nook STR Glowlight, Kindle 3
|
Yeah, it isn't that people don't want to work for it, just that there are people with more resources that fight them.
|
09-21-2009, 01:08 PM | #25 | |
Kate
Posts: 1,677
Karma: 3165009
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Oregon, United States
Device: Nexus 7 2013, Kobo Aura H2O, Kobo Forma
|
Quote:
Current copyright law is insane. Imagine if the drug companies had made the same push to get patents extended to the same length? All the same arguments for excessively long copyrights can be made for excessively long patents - drug companies spend thousands, even millions, of dollars bringing a drug to market - why shouldn't they have permanent control of their inventions? Because it's not in the public interest, is why, and neither is extensive copyright. As others here have argued, the original purpose of copyright was to give an incentive to creators, not to give anyone lifetime (or longer) control of their creations. And all this insanity just to protect Steamboat Willie. I'm sure the settlement as it stands could use some tweaking, but the underlying purpose of it - it's good to me. As for accomplishing the same thing through legislation - I doubt Google could buy as many Senators as Disney can. |
|
09-21-2009, 03:22 PM | #26 | ||
Professional Contrarian
Posts: 2,045
Karma: 3289631
Join Date: Mar 2009
Device: Kindle 4 No Touchie
|
Quote:
• It does not alter copyright length. • It has nothing whatsoever to do with DRM. • The Agreement does not transfer even a single text into public domain. • It will allow Google nearly unlimited commercial rights over these texts. E.g. they've already indicated they want to sell restricted access to libraries, sell POD paper versions, and allow competitors access to the texts they scan for resale -- on Google's own terms, of course. All it does is let Google abuse copyrights for their own commercial purposes. So what issue(s), exactly, does this fix? Quote:
Unfortunately I'm not sure how "granting unlimited rights to the first person who digitizes an orphaned movie" is a viable solution, especially if the problem is that those rights are contested or in dispute (as opposed to an inability to locate the rights holder). Nor am I sure that the most equitable way to resolve the problem is via class action lawsuits. By the way, is Google scanning Fanzines and theses? Are the theses typically copyrighted -- and really all that hard to find the ex-student? Last edited by Kali Yuga; 09-21-2009 at 03:28 PM. |
||
09-21-2009, 04:39 PM | #27 |
Banned
Posts: 2,094
Karma: 2682
Join Date: Aug 2009
Device: N/A
|
That is not the criteria, however, for inclusion.
Also, the payment criteria involved are very low. Last edited by DawnFalcon; 09-21-2009 at 04:45 PM. |
09-21-2009, 04:55 PM | #28 | ||
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 5,185
Karma: 25133758
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA
Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)
|
Quote:
Quote:
Everything on paper after ~1978 is copyrighted. Before that, it's copyrighted if there's a proper notation on it, which many of them have. Finding ex-student: Hypothetical--Mary Smith, age 27 writes her thesis in 1979, and graduates soon after. In 1981, she marries Bob Jones, and they move 1000 miles from where she attended school. They have 3 children over the next 7 years, Steven, Bob Jr, and Teresa. In 2001, Mary, age 49, and Bob are killed in a car crash. Mary never owned a computer. Finding Steve, Bob, or Teresa Jones to get permission to use Mary's thesis is going to be difficult. Other hypothetical: In 1965, Tom, a physicist at Major University, writes a brilliant document on planetary dynamics. The university publishes it, and it's used in physics classes for the next four years, until the lunar landing brings up such new insights that anything pre-Apollo is considered irrelevant. Tom was almost 60 years old when he wrote it, and he dies peacefully in 1987, leaving all his estate to his 70-year-old wife; they had no children. In 1992, she dies. Her heirs are her sister's children. Or maybe her sister's grandchildren. You can imagine plenty of similar nightmares. These aren't the majority of cases--but they're not small, obscure possibilities, either. Pamela Samuelson outlines some of the problems with the Googlebooks settlement in regards to academic authors specifically. |
||
09-21-2009, 06:10 PM | #29 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,305
Karma: 1958
Join Date: Jan 2009
Device: iPod Touch
|
I don't think we need to worry about a Google monopoly 'too' much. They have a near monopoly on search at the moment and that's working well. Google always thinks it knows best and because it has rules against being an 'evil' corporation they believe they can do no wrong.
On the good side, there aren't many corporations that can bring this disparate group of malcontents known as publishing companies together. Google, Apple are the only two companies with the strength in the Internet+Media industries to bargain with publishers and having publishers thinking this is a way forward. |
09-21-2009, 06:55 PM | #30 |
The Dank Side of the Moon
Posts: 35,872
Karma: 118716293
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Denver, CO
Device: Kindle2; Kindle Fire
|
Well certainly Microsoft and B&N are going to have their oversized say in the matter as well.
|
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Google Mash-Up: Earth goes Book Search | Alexander Turcic | News | 1 | 08-23-2007 09:52 PM |
Google Book Search goes Ajax | Alexander Turcic | News | 0 | 11-22-2006 11:09 PM |
Google Book Search to search full-text books online | Bob Russell | Deals and Resources (No Self-Promotion or Affiliate Links) | 1 | 08-19-2006 12:13 PM |
Google Print becomes Google Book Search | Alexander Turcic | News | 0 | 11-20-2005 09:22 AM |
Google Print book search enhanced | Colin Dunstan | Lounge | 2 | 05-29-2005 03:02 PM |