[MW Forums]

The Association of American Publishers filed suit against Google over the search company's Google Print Library Project, the organization announced Wednesday. more

[Moof_in_Charge]

You see, this is why there is such a low unemployment rate in US (compared to many countries) .. We have more ASSociations, ANALysts and ORGANizations than anyone else on this planet....
I am so sick of it that I am going to join the Association to Ban ASSociations committee.

[kennethfcooper]

I am left wondering what the specific concern of the publishers is. Are they afraid that someone might find a reference to their book and want to buy it? /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
Or is this a purely legal matter of controlling their copyright to prevent the book from falling into the public domain?

[kinematic]

I think the big issue is that publishers see this as the next Napster of books. With a g-mail account and some know how, you don't need to buy a book anymore, just go to print.google and download it all for free. In the couple of weeks that I've been playing with it, it has made it way easier for me and I no longer bother going to the library or the bookstore. Amazon has a search inside feature which is limited but similar however I find myself less likely to buy a book now that I can look inside and download pretty much any book with pictures as well from both sites.
Access to information is great, but I think there is too much potential for abuse.

[bigh]

Yes, I believe this is about control. Publishers as a group traditionally demand complete control from authors and artists, and they probably see this as the camel's nose under the tent. They control the channel, and Google may sidestep that control. Much like the music industry, rather than seeing whether this unknown method will increase sales, they appear to be clinging to their known distribution methods.

[pdrayton]

In reply to:

---

Access to information is great, but I think there is too much potential for abuse.

---

What abuse? Google's plans do not infringe on any copyrights whatsoever.
Publishers are upset because a highly profitable segment, books in the public domain (for which they don't have to pay any royalties), is at risk.
Publishers are trying to claim a "right" to make money off books in the public domain. They have no such right. And these lawsuits clearly show how behind the times they are... should they succeed they will stifle the very things that are currently promoting their sales of books (public domain and copyrighted). Reviewers will simply cease to provide quotes from such books (they currently don't have to seek permission to quote a book), making those books less compelling to those who might consider buying them.

[minderbinder]

"What abuse?"
I guess you missed the part of his post where he said he's been able to get all the info he needed from Google and has stopped buying books or going to the library?
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

[pdrayton]

In reply to:

---

I guess you missed the part of his post where he said he's been able to get all the info he needed from Google and has stopped buying books or going to the library?

---

I'm assuming you're jesting as the only books he can get from Google are those already in the public domain.
Bypassing middlemen who publish books that are already in the public domain is a scary thought! We should be trembling!
Heaven forbid if we get to a place where publishers will actually have to work for a living! /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[minderbinder]

"the only books he can get from Google are those already in the public domain."
I don't know, you should ask him for clarification.

[HumanJHawkins]

In reply to:

---

I am left wondering what the specific concern of the publishers is

---

Google is using an electronic reproduction of the entire text of copyrighted material to create a for-profit service. Advertising revenue (which is what supports this for Google) will be in the millions even if this is only marginally successful. I am pretty sure this is their main concern.
While publishers haven't entered the market yet, any of them could certainly hire a group to create their own digitized library and direct that revenue to themselves.
In any event, there is also a precident involved that has all sorts of potential loss involved for copyright holders: Is it okay for someone to reproduce an entire copyrighted text and use that reproduction for their own interests without permission from the owner? Publishers clearly want the answer to be "No."

[HumanJHawkins]

In reply to:

---

the only books he can get from Google are those already in the public domain.

---

One of us has missed something (and it might be me?). Anyway, Google is definitely not just using books in the public domain... The whole point of the lawsuit is that Google is scanning in the entire text of copyrighted books.
Google's position is that this is okay because they don't make the entire text available to people who search. The publisher's position is that Google needs permission to make the electronic copy in the first place, regardless of whether or not they show the whole thing to others.

[mac_the_knife]

I think what will prevent Google Print from becoming the Napster of Books is that it's not so simple (as it was in napster) to retrieve the entire text of a book. As far as I can tell, you search for something, and it will give you a range of pages with that particular term in it--3 pages backwards or forwards, and even less if Google decides to restrict pages (as it sometimes does). You can't (under normal circumstances) "right-click" on the page to save it, download it, or what-not.
Ok, so you may say, well there's this hack and that hack, take the time to do this or that, and essentially you have accessed the book (bypassing whatever protections Google has built in) and are able to copy it for free. What this argument is missing is that the transaction costs for obtaining the knowledge and implementing the hack are much higher than Napster. If I wanted something on Napster, I'd just search and download. Voila.
The way the Google Print project is implemented, it will provide more incentive, not less, for people looking for information to go out and buy the book. The page restrictions don't yield the context in which that information is presented.
Finally, note that every book that Google has scanned so far is either in the public domain OR has been approved for their project by the publisher. They have halted scanning books at the various libaries (the one in question is the University of Michigan's) and are not displaying those yet.

[mac_the_knife]

HumanJHawkins has, I think, captured exactly the publishers' arguments. How the suit will be resolved will ultimately turn on whether a court determines Google's reproduction (for ultimate distribution) and subsequent distribution (of parts) to be "fair use." Fair use isn't some amorphous concept that people throw around, it's actually written in the copyright law. It is a case by case analysis using four factors to look at what's actually being done. The publishers may make the case that reproducing entire works precludes fair use, but it's clear from the law that the amount used is only one of the four factors to be considered, and none are given greater weight than the others. Fair use is also not precluded simply because a use is commercial (there's plenty of case law to support that).
It's a sticky situation. Just my opinion, but I think that in the end, Google should win, because the entire purpose of copyright is to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts," (as it is written in the Constitution) and the factors of fair use are to be read in light of this purpose. Of all of the fair use cases that have come up recently, Google Print just might trump all of them in terms of promoting the progress of science and the useful arts.

[Moof_in_Charge]

In reply to:

---

I don't know, you should ask him for clarification.

---

Well pardon the intrusion.. you should know! otherwise you shouldnt cloud the discussing with your two cents /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif just kidding of course but in all seriousness Kinematic either doesnt understand public domain laws or is not familiar with Google's service.. a good place to start is http://print.google....print/help.html
The lawsuit is baseless and unwarranted. If I were a publisher, I would start banging on Google's doors demanding for my stuff to be included.
But sadly, most of the brains in publishing have the same fungus as an Irish Potato(e) circa 1845. May be Dan Quayle has gone in to publishing after mastering spellingWhatever happened to him?