Oh Google, come on. I have to say, I’m a bit disappointed in your behavior. I know it’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to ask permission, but I have a hard time picturing a group of Google executives sitting in a meeting and saying, “We’ll just do it, and see if they notice”, which is what it looks like they did regarding their plan to make a digital library. When Google created Google Books, they were quickly slapped with a lawsuit that’s been in negotiations since its creations in 2005. Big fat DUH, Google. With all the trouble my teachers went through to make sure I didn’t plagiarize or copy information out of books or websites for my papers, it’s strange that Google thinks it would be okay to just upload millions and millions of books without telling the authors. It’s hard to imagine this free digital library not having some sort of monetary effect on the writers and publishing companies, not to mention they have even less knowledge of who gets their material and how. Plus, there’s the general lack of R-E-S-P-E-C-T in this situation.
Ms. Aretha disapproves of you, Google
From what I understand, it comes down to Google assuming it was okay to scan and upload 15 million (out of a goal total of 130 million) books to a digital library without getting permission from any of the authors. Google decided they would upload any books they wanted to, unless they were informed by an author or publisher that they couldn’t upload a specific work. I found no information on how Google informed publishing companies they were uploading their books or if they even tried to inform them at all. Either way, it’s an inappropriately bold move.
Books are going away. In 100 years, getting your hands on a hard copy of a book is going to be a rare occurrence. It can become as rare and special as it was when books were first created and monks spent entire lifetimes duplicating them. As wonderful as the creation of the Nook and the Kindle was, it made it easy for our society to not need hard copies of anything anymore. Were something to happen that removed our access to the invisible volt of information floating around in cyber space that holds all our world’s history and literature, I think we would kick ourselves for not having hard copies ready. I also hate to think of what the society that follows us will assume about our life based on what they find. They may find one sad copy of Moby Dick that survived in the New York Museum of Informative Relics and Touchable Information. Future humans may then think we were a society of asshole whale-killing captains and huge, man-eating whales. And then they’ll be like “what the hell is a whale?”
"It's a giant, raging metaphor!"
Anyway, this lawsuit has been going on for nearly seven years now and the Google attorney, Daralyn Durie, feels they have recently made strong progress toward finding a solution. Despite how obvious and ridiculous this situation is, both sides seem willing to work together to find a good solution to this problem, which was inevitable and a long time coming giving the amount of binary we use nowadays. Even though Google went about creating their library poorly, it’s hard to deny the value in putting all our literature online. A digital library would make books more available to less privileged families, entire populations of people, and students, and I’m pro that. But I think there’s more mature and diplomatic ways to go about doing it. As a writer myself, I too would want more information and control over my work. U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, who presides over this case, recently told the Associated Press, “many of the objections would disappear if the library only consisted of works in which authors and publishers had granted their permission rather than a system in which books are included unless Google is informed that an author or publisher objects.”
Again, I feel the need to say this: duh, Google. No more beer during Friday’s meetings.
Yeah, Google went about it in the worst way possible, simply because they didn’t want to do the work of checking copyright and availablilty the way everyone else would have to do.
That said, having access to so much more information and books of all sorts is a great thing about the new technologies.
Of course, I’ve read enough post-apocalyptic science fiction, that I can see potential problems in the lack of hard-copy. I, however, do not think the hard copy book will entirely disappear. The power of the physical object doesn’t disappear, and sometimes a book will be that object. I do think actual hard copy books may become more object d’art in and of themselves, but I don’t find that a bad thing.
What I do see happening even now, though is the divide between the plugged in and the unplugged of society. It’s a new class divide. Look at advertising on television — TV, which is in virtually all homes these days — many of those ads send viewers to websites for further information about the products and deals. But if one does not have an internet connection, let alone a computer, what then? One of my brothers-in-law is pretty much a computer Luddite, which for a lawyer is a pretty bizarre choice of life-style. I don’t know what the answer to this needs to be, but I see the separation present and growing.
That lawsuit is complete and utter CRAP! Most of those books on Google are either out of print, 100+ years old, are public domain, or they’re like educational/infomational stuff! Yes there are modern books but you can’t really view the stuff (or they just have a couple pages to give you an idea of what’s in it).
Google just tells you the book is out there and points out the links to BUY the book (IE Amazon.com) or lets you see if it’s in a library near you. Heck those same books can also be be viewed on Archive.org, Heritage Quest, and numerous other sites. Google’s not alone.
Dierna;
Can you supply any particulars? Google Books’ original approach was basically ignore the nature of copyright, the rights to reproduction of a work, and just digitise books wholesale. Even allowing for the finer points of copyright law and fair use, this is seems like an utterly reckless strategy in terms of how to approach building a library of content, rather than the slower process of working out business deals with copyright holders. And as a basic standard of legal practice, I can’t say that failing to check and hammer out copyright issues is anything but risible.