Google Faces Antitrust Investigation for Agreement to Digitize Millions of Books

[GracchusBabeuf]

.

[STJ]

Yes they are.

[Yazman]

I think its great that they're digitising so many books. There are many that otherwise would never be digitised.

[STJ]

I agree with you Google is out to control the market.

[Yazman]

Its not great actually. If you watch the video, you'd know that Google is forming a gigantic monopoly over nearly all books that have gone out of circulation. This lawsuit is a last-gasp effort on the part of some authors to fight Google's predatory practices. Its highly unlikely that they'll win and its likely Google will hold the rights to all such out-of circulation books from all libraries/universities. Of course, Google is not a "publicly" managed company to not hold the reading population at ransom. They control all access and its totally their prerogative whether anyone gets to read those books or not.

This doesn't seem to add up - how can Google usurp already existing intellectual rights simply by digitising a text? You do realise that a "publicly managed company" is still a private corporation right? As long as we are in a capitalist society all access will be controlled.

[Yazman]

I understand that this is within capitalism. But Google charges for that access unlike the state controlled libraries.

Sometimes, but I've been able to access shitloads of stuff for free. Usually if its in the public domain they don't charge. If its not, well they are required by law to charge at some point.

[DIzzIE]

First of all, Google digitizing millions of books is great news for the simple reason that it will make books easier to pirate, and therefore easier to distribute, and therefore easier to spread information. That's all there is to it.

Now to clear up a couple misconceptions about this case I'm seeing so far in this thread (do note that this isn't meant as any sort of apologist twaddle for Google on my part--fuck Google; it's merely an attempt to actually relay accurate data instead of disinformation):

1)
Its not great actually. If you watch the video, you'd know that Google is forming a gigantic monopoly over nearly all books that have gone out of circulation. This lawsuit is a last-gasp effort on the part of some authors to fight Google's predatory practices. Its highly unlikely that they'll win and its likely Google will hold the rights to all such out-of circulation books from all libraries/universities.

Just to clarify, there are three classes of books that are being discussed here: i) books that are in the public domain (and can be both in/out of print), ii) books that are copyrighted and in print, and iii) books that copyrighted and out of print.

The first subset is honky dory, as Kahle says, "In the out of copyright, it’s OK; there’s no rights issues there, they can make those available." Anyone (at least in the US) can copy PD books and do whatever with them, there's no issue.

The second subset isn't being talked about much in this case for some reason, my guess is because Google seems to be pursuing private deals with publishers themselves outside of this particular settlement.

And this brings us to the third subset, the one you're presumably referring to when you mention "all such out-of circulation books". This subset (that composes 5 million titles of Google's current stash, with each other subset composed of an additional million each), is what the brouhaha is all about. And what we have here is two rival arms of capital: Google's profit motive is in conflict with the profit motive of the existent copyright owners (authors, publishers, etc).

What is absolutely essential to grasp here is that neither Google nor the other copyright holders, nor even the libraries, give a flying fuck about open access to information or free unbridled data dissemination. They both only care about their own potential profit from the books in question. Google obviously wants to profit from its databases, and the other potential rights holders want to profit from works they may still have legal copyright to. Therefore, those of us who are actually interested in free information dispersal must look at which side will better suit our goal of sharing knowledge. Yazman already provided us with the obvious answer:


I think its great that they're digitising so many books. There are many that otherwise would never be digitised.

And here we come to the crux of the matter:

Google will digitise fuckloads of books. The books will come with fuckloads of restrictions of use; however, there is nothing stopping anyone interested in disseminating information from ignoring said terms of use. While reading this interview and the referenced Darnton essay, I noticed a conspicuous lack of any mention of warez. The simple fact of the matter is that having these digital copies will only serve to provide another vector for ebook piracy, therefore making the content more widely available.

Whereas before one would have to get the treeware copy and scan it or even transcribe it by hand prior to sharing it on one's P2P network of choice, now one will have the option of doing that or tapping into the electronic database and liberating the already digitized copy-- and this is precisely why we should be supporting Google's endeavor.

2)
But Google charges for that access unlike the state controlled libraries.

Not exactly. To quote from the Darnton piece (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22281) that Kahle references in the Goodman interview (the emphasis is mine):


The settlement creates an enterprise known as the Book Rights Registry to represent the interests of the copyright holders. Google will sell access to a gigantic data bank composed primarily of copyrighted, out-of-print books digitized from the research libraries. Colleges, universities, and other organizations will be able to subscribe by paying for an "institutional license" providing access to the data bank. A "public access license" will make this material available to public libraries, where Google will provide free viewing of the digitized books on one computer terminal. And individuals also will be able to access and print out digitized versions of the books by purchasing a "consumer license" from Google, which will cooperate with the registry for the distribution of all the revenue to copyright holders. Google will retain 37 percent, and the registry will distribute 63 percent among the rightsholders.

Or here's a perhaps more succinct explanation of the relevant terms from Businessweek (http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2009/04/letter_read_the.html):



1. Public Access License – free online portal to view database of out-of-print books, such as at a public library. However, it is a “see only” policy here, and if the pages are to be printed, there will be a per-page fee.

In other words, the Google Book Search service will be available for free in 'state controlled libraries.' Users can pay to print out pages, much like they can pay to make photocopies of treeware copies.


And on a final note, I'd just like to point out that a portion of this interview which some of you seem to have ignored, read carefully:


BREWSTER KAHLE: Actually, there’s no restriction in the Google settlement or Google contracts that say they can’t deal with the open world, but in practice they won’t. So, the University of California, which we were working with in scanning their books, once they signed this agreement with Google—and we found out that they had been negotiating in, but they couldn’t tell us about it—but once that happened, within days, they said any books that they’re ever going to give to Google, they will not give to the Internet Archive to scan.

New York Public Library also has one of the fantastic library collections in the world, and they committed to Google to go and give access to that research collection.

AMY GOODMAN: Sole access?

BREWSTER KAHLE: And what turns out is sole access. It’s not legally required that they not give it to anybody else, but in practice, they said they will not. Columbia University, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you mean when you say it’s not legally required. You mean in the contract, what they have with Google? And so, if Google was here, they’d say, “We didn’t say they couldn’t give it to Internet Archive. That’s their prerogative.”

BREWSTER KAHLE: Correct, that basically Google didn’t put it in their contract. Yet from a library’s perspective, why have a book scanned twice? It’s wear and tear on the books. If they think that—and they wouldn’t have signed it if they didn’t think that the Google thing was a good idea. But now that they’ve signed this with Google, they don’t want it scanned again. And this is a problem, because the books, even the out-of-copyright books, are locked up perpetually.

Just to get this straight, in case it hasn't sunk in yet: there is nothing in the agreement that says libraries cannot work both with Google and with other independent groups like the Internet Archive to make two digital copies of the same book--but the libraries are the ones who are willingly (not contractually) refusing to work with the independent archivers?!

Oh, and if anyone actually buy's Kahle's bullshit excuse of "why have a book scanned twice", we can answer by saying because "we want to open up our collections and make them available to readers everywhere" (which is incidentally a quote from the very same essay written by Darnton that Kahle praises in the interview).

So to those of you who bleat "Google is evil"; why do you not extend the same courtesy to the libraries? That's fucking bullshit.