Dan Blacharski, a columnist for ITworld.com, has weighed in on the Microsoft vs. Google book search debate, pointing out that while it is fashionable to bash Microsoft as a corporate bully, the Microsoft Live Book Search system treats copyright holders more fairly than Google Book Search does, because Microsoft only “displays books that are past their copyright, or have been specifically authorized by the copyright holder.”
The big question is that do I, as a creator of content and writer of books, have a problem with my books being on Google Book Search? It’s a tough question. When a library carries one of my books, they have purchased it from the publisher, and I get my fifty cents worth of royalty payment. But a library makes that book available only to a local community; if an online library makes a book available in digital form to the entire world, there should be adequate compensation to the author. But as I said, that’s not what Google is doing. They are, however, providing a summary, table of contents, title page, index, and copyright page, a link to buy the book, and a place to search the book. Search results will show snippets of text, maybe a few paragraphs, related to the search. Frankly, it doesn’t seem like such an egregious imposition on my rights, and it may help me sell a few books in the process. The grey area comes in deciding whether Google has a right to scan and index those books without permission from the publisher. Publishers may well decide it’s to their advantage to grant permission-but it would be more fair for Google to seek out that permission before scanning.
A Google feature in TIME magazine last year reported that the company’s founders use the informal corporate motto “don’t be evil.” Perhaps they also should add a corollary from everybody’s mom: “And always ask politely before you borrow something.”
Copyright and Royalty
Both these are important but limited in value. They are concepts predicated on the assumption that someone wants to buy – not read – a particular work.
The local ‘library’ is limited by budgetary and cultural preferences, they may also have their stock limited by borrower statistics, thus a ‘good’ book may be dumped asap and literary ‘garbage’ kept forever. A matter of ‘taste’ perhaps.
Then again, the supermarket mentality in regards to bookselling has come about precisely because of ‘taste’ and unsavoury dealings which do not favour the authors.
At least the internet brings and keeps books ‘available’ instead of rotting behind the stinking past their sell-by date cabbages.
Better to skip fifty cents (lucky man) than be totally ignored.
Dennis Greig
I don’t see how copyright is “limited in value”. Copyright is what gives creators of works the power to control what’s done with them, and that power is what allows anyone who invents things to do so professionally, instead of just as a hobby.
Any author (or other creator) can post their inventions on the web in any way they choose, with or without protection. Copyright does not hinder them in any way from giving their works away for free. But copyright gives them the choice, and what Google was trying to do was take away that choice from authors by scanning absolutely everything without asking permission first.
What the controversy with Google boils down to is this: Google decided they could do whatever they wanted with other people’s copyrighted material, and then they rationalized it afterwards as being beneficial to authors. What’s next? Google worms into my computer, takes my latest book manuscript, and posts in on the web? Then they say “It’s ok, it’s for your own good – you’ll get great distribution, and you won’t be exploited by crooked publishers.” No. That’s not Google’s choice, it’s mine, and when they scan books they’re violating an author’s rights just as much. If they want to “do me a favour” and scan my works, all they have to do is ask.