[IP] more on An author's dissent on Google Print
Begin forwarded message:
From: Cindy Cohn <cindy@xxxxxxx>
Date: October 30, 2005 1:55:01 AM EST
To: Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [IP] more on An author's dissent on Google Print
Hi Dave,
I find this whole discussion bewildering, but in a different way than
Julien.
Google isn't getting or giving free copies full of any of the works.
It's making a copy, true, but only for an intermediate use. Nobody
will get to read that copy in full, as book reviewers do.
What Google is doing is figuring out how to update the card catalog
for the digital age. Google is making it possible for us to find
books we want to buy (or borrow from the library, which isn't a crime
just yet). Google is not letting us read books for free. Not even
close. Does anyone really think that someone who wanted to read Angle
of Repose would instead use GooglePrint and decide that the snippet
of Stegner was sufficient?
So what are the Authors Guild and the publishers complaining about?
They're complaining that Google hasn't offered to share the profits
that might accrue thanks to ads Google may someday display, or that
are attributable to the marginal increase in general Google traffic.
But on what basis do they claim entitlement to that brand new revenue
stream? The money is not based on the public copying the book --
which is what copyright protects against -- it's based on the public
FINDING the book in the first instance.
Now I suppose that the Authors Guild folks want to claim that they
should get a share of any way of making money related to locating
their works. That's an interesting argument, but it's not a
copyright claim. If copyright owners approached libraries and
demanded a share of library funds because of the existence of the
card catalog it would be difficult to stifle the giggles. Yet isn't
the same thing going on here? Stealing an analogy from law Prof Tim
Wu, we have never given real property owners the right to "opt out"
of any mechanism that helps people find their property -- maps.
That's just not in the bundle of rights you get when you buy a home
and preventing location tools is also not in the bundle of rights
that come with copyright.
So Lauren's talk about "conscription" of authors has me puzzled.
Copyright has never given authors the power to control the ways that
people find books. Why should the fact that Google needs to make an
intermediate copy in order to provide people with a book location
service suddenly create a new right in authors to control whether and
how we readers can easily find their works?
Cindy
********************************************************
Cindy Cohn ---- Cindy@xxxxxxx
Legal Director ---- www.eff.org
Electronic Frontier Foundation
454 Shotwell Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 436-9333 x108
(415) 436-9993 (fax)
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