[LINK] Google and the future of books

Anthony Hornby anthony.w.hornby at gmail.com
Thu Feb 5 10:52:35 AEDT 2009


Monopolies are always a bad thing ....still, I think the author did
try hard to provide a balanced view.

However a discussion of the merits of Google as a company were not
what I was really after.
I am more interested if his interpretation of the legalities and
practicalities surrounding the judgement relating to Google having no
competition for the foreseeable future are valid.

Regards Anthony



2009/2/5 Michael Skeggs mike at bystander.net <mskeggs at gmail.com>:
> 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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