[LINK] Google and the future of books

[Michael Skeggs mike@bystander.net]

Vernor Vinge wrote a novel where the software company digitising libraries
had developed scanning software that removed the need to turn book pages.
Instead, the books were fed into a wood chipper, and shredded. the airborne
paper was then scanned as it flew by, and the software ran an image sorting
algorithm to reassemble the fragments into pages, then to OCR the resultant
image. Very efficient at scanning a whole library in a matter of days, and
the shredded paper could then be safely stored in a vault "for future
generations" with more security than the original books in a library open to
humans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End


...so while a Google hegemony on digital libraries is not ideal, it could be
worse.

Regards,
Michael Skeggs

On 05/02/2009, Anthony Hornby <anthony.w.hornby at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi All,
> I found this a facinating read, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22281.
> Does anyone on the list have enough knowledge of the Google Books
> judgment to know whether the points the author raises about the impact
> of it in this article are valid?
>
> <snip>
> In September and October 2005, a group of authors and publishers
> brought a class action suit against Google, alleging violation of
> copyright. Last October 28, after lengthy negotiations, the opposing
> parties announced agreement on a settlement, which is subject to
> approval by the US District Court for the Southern District of New
> York.[2]
>
> ....
>
> After reading the settlement and letting its terms sink in—no easy
> task, as it runs to 134 pages and 15 appendices of legalese—one is
> likely to be dumbfounded: here is a proposal that could result in the
> world's largest library. It would, to be sure, be a digital library,
> but it could dwarf the Library of Congress and all the national
> libraries of Europe. Moreover, in pursuing the terms of the settlement
> with the authors and publishers, Google could also become the world's
> largest book business—not a chain of stores but an electronic supply
> service that could out-Amazon Amazon.
>
> An enterprise on such a scale is bound to elicit reactions of the two
> kinds that I have been discussing: on the one hand, utopian
> enthusiasm; on the other, jeremiads about the danger of concentrating
> power to control access to information.
>
> Who could not be moved by the prospect of bringing virtually all the
> books from America's greatest research libraries within the reach of
> all Americans, and perhaps eventually to everyone in the world with
> access to the Internet? Not only will Google's technological wizardry
> bring books to readers, it will also open up extraordinary
> opportunities for research, a whole gamut of possibilities from
> straightforward word searches to complex text mining. Under certain
> conditions, the participating libraries will be able to use the
> digitized copies of their books to create replacements for books that
> have been damaged or lost. Google will engineer the texts in ways to
> help readers with disabilities.
>
> ......
>
> Google is not a guild, and it did not set out to create a monopoly. On
> the contrary, it has pursued a laudable goal: promoting access to
> information. But the class action character of the settlement makes
> Google invulnerable to competition. Most book authors and publishers
> who own US copyrights are automatically covered by the settlement.
> They can opt out of it; but whatever they do, no new digitizing
> enterprise can get off the ground without winning their assent one by
> one, a practical impossibility, or without becoming mired down in
> another class action suit. If approved by the court—a process that
> could take as much as two years—the settlement will give Google
> control over the digitizing of virtually all books covered by
> copyright in the United States.
>
>
> .....
>
> As an unintended consequence, Google will enjoy what can only be
> called a monopoly—a monopoly of a new kind, not of railroads or steel
> but of access to information. Google has no serious competitors.
> Microsoft dropped its major program to digitize books several months
> ago, and other enterprises like the Open Knowledge Commons (formerly
> the Open Content Alliance) and the Internet Archive are minute and
> ineffective in comparison with Google. Google alone has the wealth to
> digitize on a massive scale. And having settled with the authors and
> publishers, it can exploit its financial power from within a
> protective legal barrier; for the class action suit covers the entire
> class of authors and publishers. No new entrepreneurs will be able to
> digitize books within that fenced-off territory, even if they could
> afford it, because they would have to fight the copyright battles all
> over again. If the settlement is upheld by the court, only Google will
> be protected from copyright liability.
>
>
> </snip>
>
> Thanks a lot.
>
> Regards Anthony
>
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