back to article Google SO CAN scan ALL BOOKS onto its sites - judge

Google has defeated writers who alleged the web giant broke the law when it put extracts from millions of books online for free. The Authors Guild and groups representing photographers and graphic artists sued the advertising goliath, claiming the Google Books website was a massive breach of copyright. The service has scanned …

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    1. Justicesays

      Re: It's the thin end of the wedge. And don't be surprised where that wedge is going to end up.

      The next step is getting to decide what the "Orphan Works" are, the defacto ownership and use basically going to Google due to its pre-existing electronic copies and distribution mechanisms.

      Some mechanism where Google don't have to pay fines, but just set aside a small amount of money in case the missing owner "reappears", and a opt-in , check for my books and mark as "don't use" or "Pay me a pittance" mechanism complete the journey.

    2. Mikel

      It takes a Google to win the "fair use" fight

      Who else would have the deep pockets to fight the Author's guild for eight years and many millions of dollars? The commitment to index all the world's books and build the modern Library of Alexandria? The resources and skill to actually get it done?

    3. Cardinal
      WTF?

      Re: It's the thin end of the wedge. And don't be surprised where that wedge is going to end up.

      Google giving the world a wedgie again eh?

      We all know where THAT ends up.

  1. Whitter
    Thumb Down

    Small and juicy

    An excerpt from a book of poetry or photographs can easily stand as a complete work in its own right. Its a shoddy affair.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    sauce for the goose

    Didn't Napster get shut down for 'sharing' copyrighted music? Anyone would think that law making is completely arbitrary and devoid of rationale.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Thumb Down

      Way to completely miss the point.

      Napster was sharing whole "songs". Google is publishing a tiny portion of a book on demand.

      There really is no comparison.

      1. Tom 13

        @Pascal

        You say "whole songs".

        I say "excerpts from albums" legally bought and legally scanned under the Google precedent. And like Google excerpts you had to search for each excerpt separately.

        At least if we accept your theory.

        If on the other hand we accept the Napster theory, that it is the act of wholesale distribution of excerpts/songs for profit or other corporate benefit that is illegal, then things still work.

  3. Pen-y-gors

    How many extracts make a book?

    The principle of publishing extracts under fair use is fine, and there are definitions of 'extract', but what is the cumulative effect of multiple extracts? If I include some extracts from a copyright work in a new work or a review, then that's one thing, but if every reader of my book saw a different extract what happens then? Because that is what Google do. They don't scan the whole book and then publish a few selected extracts - different searchers will see different extracts based on their search term. Do enough searc hes and you can see a fair proportion of the book. Okay, pretty pointless for a novel, but for non-fiction/reference that may be all that is needed. A student writing an essay can get plenty of quotes without even going to look at a copy in the Library, let alone buying the book.

    It's all very complicated...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How many extracts make a book?

      "Do enough searches and you can see a fair proportion of the book. Okay, pretty pointless for a novel, but for non-fiction/reference that may be all that is needed. A student writing an essay can get plenty of quotes without even going to look at a copy in the Library, let alone buying the book."

      You seem to be coming down on the side of the publishers? Are you saying that a student as part of their course should have to buy every text-book that they wish to cite as they should not be allowed any extract of that text to be searched for?

      If they go to the Library should they spend three weeks reading every relevant text book just to try to find one that discussed a subject they are trying to critically review?

      If libraries had a fully searchable database of every book so that you could choose the book by the text rather than the title and synopsis then great. If all those libraries then combined so you could see the texts from any local libraries, great. They don't have the resources to do this so why not let a third party do it.

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        FAIL

        Funny how all the Google support is AC, is it not?

        Guess you don't want to burn a good sock puppet without cause, eh?

    2. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: without even going to look at a copy in the Library

      What, you want to ban libraries too ?

  4. Kall

    Historical Google Books

    As a historian I have found Google books invaluable. Without it I would not have had access to books which are only available in the Cornell Library in the USA.

    What I found was extraordinary, a person from Farnborough Hants England played an important role in the formation of the USA during the Stamp Act and the 'War of Independence' and also was considered important enough to sit on the council in New York.

    I have also found evidence of him supplying help to George Washington. There was no way that I or anyone would have been able to find the relevant documentary evidence to confirm this amazing twist on history without Google scanning these rare books.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Meh

      Re: Historical Google Books

      "What I found was extraordinary, a person from Farnborough Hants England played an important role in the formation of the USA during the Stamp Act and the 'War of Independence' and also was considered important enough to sit on the council in New York."

      How fascinating!

      What was the title of of the book you found that in?

    2. Tom 13

      Re: Historical Google Books

      A historian eh?

      Odd then that you've not heard of inter-library loans. I recall getting several books sent to my high school library from out of state libraries when I was in the 10th grade. Of course this was back before the Internet was a gleam in Al Gore's eye.

      1. Eguro

        Re: Historical Google Books

        "without Google scanning these rare books."

        Except if perhaps the library had scanned its books?

    3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: Historical Google Books

      And these rare books were still under copyright, were they?

  5. N2

    US Judge?

    says it all.

  6. Ian 55

    Running out of hands

    On one, being able to search any book ever written would be wonderful.

    On the other, as the author of several, including one on something with a significant anniversary coming up, I am less keen.

    Looking at the US 'fair use' rules:

    "The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes" - are Google showing ads when they show my work? If so, I want a substantial cut of the money, datafucker!

    "The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole" and "The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work" - as has been said, for novels, having numerous chunks available may not be such a big deal. For those of us who write about real facts rather than making up our own artistic reality, 10% of the whole can represent 90% of the value (as with programs!)

    "The nature of the copyrighted work" - sadly, the nature of authors' and publishers' work is that of something that has not had billions spent on lobbying for increases in protection over the past century.

    Looking at the examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported” - none of that is what Google have done: automatically reproduce verbatim, without permission or payment, as much as their secret algorithms want, to anyone, for any purpose. There is no review or criticism, no scholarly analysis, no summary, etc etc.

    But, as I say, being able to search any book ever written would be wonderful. But not if it's controlled by a company seeking a monopoly.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Running out of hands

      I'd be interested in the titles of your books?

      Have you seen a large revenue loss since they were scanned in by Google? Have you had any orders because users searched for something that your book covered and decided to buy it?

      Just interested in the real harm or value that this service gives authors.

      1. sisk

        Re: Running out of hands

        Full disclosure: I've never even tried to have something published, though a poem I wrote was copied and published by someone else under their own name. I never pursued the matter since the lawyer would cost me far more than I could ever hope to get in royalties from it. Besides, its not like I was ever going to publish it myself. (In case you're wondering, yes I was angry, no I haven't talked to that 'friend' since, and no the poem wasn't any good. Quite how they got someone to publish it is beyond me).

        Anyway, it would seem to me that net sales are probably higher as a result of this service. I would imagine it would be similar to how music sales when up when Napster was in its infancy. Most people were still on dial-up internet then, so downloading more than a few megabytes worth of music was impractical. They'd get one or two songs and then go buy the album because they liked them and didn't want to tie up their phone line all day to get the rest of it. It's the same sort of thing with what Google's doing. You read a chapter and want to read the next one so you go buy the book.

      2. Ian 55

        Re: Running out of hands

        The situation is slightly complicated by the way they are ghost written. It is, for a change, a good deal for the one who did the actual writing (me) in that I get all the money and the person whose name is on the cover gets all the credit (I don't even get a thanks, let alone a 'with' in the author credits, but I've been paid for that and I'm happy with it).

        If I stick the subject of the anniversary into Amazon, that particular book what I wrote is on the first page of results, nearly twenty years after it was written. It is not difficult to find or to buy for anyone even vaguely interested in the subject.

        If despite that Google are going to publish, without asking, enough of it that it does damage sales, it is going to be very tempting to stick the lot on a website ourselves. The deal with the publisher allows that and it means that we (me) will be profiting from any ads shown alongside it.

        I do think we deserve a say in whether Google is allowed to do it though. If we wanted it on a website, we'd have done it ages ago. If we wanted it on a website and for Google not to index it, it would be a simple matter of Torying the robots.txt file to stop them. But because it's deliberately not on a web site at the moment, and because Google have decided that there's no equivalent of robots.txt for print work even if the book hadn't predated the web, they have decided they can do so whenever they can find a copy in a library prepared to let them.

        The others include works about multiple people or things. You could, if you were Google, claim that showing someone everything about one of those was 'fair use', even though that would be everything about them in the book. Again, I think we deserve a say in that.

        (It's not just Google taking other people's work without asking and profiting from it, of course. So just in case, hello Daily Mail et al. You do not have permission to reprint this unless you ask and pay what I require for that to happen. No love, me.)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Running out of hands

          So you won't name the book, didn't publish the book, aren't the author, don't seem to know if Google are even hosting the book, don't know of any impact that having the book on Google would cause. Are you even getting royalties for the book?

          And your publisher doesn't care if you give the book away for free if you want? Seriously?

          By publishing the whole book you would be giving it away whereas Google gives away a small extract to put you search terms into contact.

          Sounds to me like many of the publishers... We want Google to give us loads of money because although they aren't in any way breaking the law, they are providing a useful service and probably increasing book revenues just because they have lots of cash.

          1. Ian 55

            Re: Running out of hands

            Meow. I wrote the words (and in the case of the best one, did the design as well). It's just not my name on the cover.

            Why should I name any of them? You probably haven't heard of them. But it's not LJ Rowling who will be hurt by this, it's the people who write 99% of the books that don't sell millions, just enough to stay in print for twenty years..

            Google is, without asking or even offering payment, seeking to profit from my work. The person who's got the kudos of being seen as a published author paid for my work. The publishers paid (and yes, when the the contract was done, various rights were retained - I'm not stupid, and what they got was the exclusive UK rights to print copies until they let the book go out of print). In one case, a TV company paid. If we "gave away" the content, we could still make money from it, via ads etc.

  7. sisk

    If a university were doing the exact same thing that Google is no one would bat an eye at it. The only reason this case exists at all, as with a couple others over the past couple years. Remember how people whined when Google bought Motorola and didn't change their licensing policy? No one said a word when Motorola was using the exact same policy, but everyone lost their minds when it was Google.

    Not that they don't commit their fair share of corporate sins, but they seem to have become sue-bait.

  8. John Robson Silver badge

    Plenty of

    'out of copyright' content available to scan....

    And more arriving each year as well...

  9. Nym

    Writers can use this

    or complain about it.

    And if they don't get on Google's little map they're unlikely to be seen/read/heard (word of choice).

    1. Eguro
      Joke

      Re: Writers can use this

      So you're saying Google is getting a monopoly on the book marketing market?

  10. jnffarrell1

    The Opinion is Easy Reading

    It describes what Google does and does not do. Many of the above comments spread lies. That is what they are. Rumor mongers can inform them selves, cease lieing or be accurately described as liars. No insult intended.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I am glad I found this site

    I am glad I found this site as my brain is hungry to debate intelligently.

    I'll come back when I can add to the discussion.

    Thank You all for being here.

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