According To Lessig, Kicking Me Shows “More Respect” Than Ignoring Me
There’s a bit of debate lately due to a Microsoft lawyer bashing Google’s book scanning program and their positions on copyright. It’s one of those stories everybody has to comment on, despite merely being a case of one company sniping at another, so naturally I stayed the hell away from it. Still, Lawrence Lessig made an argument that so defines the opposite of compelling that I had to say something:
Well, Microsoft “respects” these copyright holders by not providing any access to their works. Google “respects” these copyright holders by providing “snippet access” — just enough to see a sentence or two around the words you’re searching for, and then links to actually get the book (either at a library, or from a book seller).
This may just be my own vanity, but I suspect that more copyright holders of books no longer in print would like Google’s kind of respect over Microsoft’s. But in any case, it is not true to say that Google could have provided “its Book Search service” in the way that “we at Microsoft are doing it.” If asking first is always required, then because of the insanely inefficient system of property that we call copyright — inefficient again because the government has designed it so that there’s no simple way to know who owns what, the very essence of a property system — 75% of books could not be within a digital view of our past.
Sorry, Mr. Lessig, but it is your own vanity. While there are many authors who care more about getting their books out there than making money, the vast majority is trying to earn a living. Those authors whose books are out of print, but still in copyright, would love an opportunity to make some money off their older books, but Google’s plan involves copying them without permission. When you make a copy of a copyrighted work, you are in essence stealing it, and even when I download music and movies, I never kid myself that what I am doing is legal.
It is one thing for a kid on Limewire to download the latest “Jesus Take The Wheel” or whatever, but its a far larger issue if a 140 billion dollar corporation scans and copies every book on the face of the earth! I think Google should scan in all these books, but only after finding a way to make it all legal. Thus far, Google has presented only vague, uneven, unproven, unprecedented reasoning for its program, been beset with threats and lawsuits, and I’ve got a bad feeling all their efforts will eventually be undone by a court decision.
The main thing, though, is the fallacy at the heart of the argument: Lessig argues that getting authors works back into the public eye, without payment or permission, shows more respect than doing absolutely nothing. Seriously? Even if all the authors want their books in Google, I’ve always felt that to respect me, you have to show respect, and that means asking me if what you are doing is okay. Don’t tell these authors what’s best for them, that shows no respect at all.
Mr. Lessig, even if you want Google to scan and index your book, even if you want the knowledge in your book spread throughout the earth, wouldn’t you want Google, a company that will make money off your book you will never see, to at least ask permission first? Unless you put up a Creative Commons license, allowing them to do this without express permission, shouldn’t they give you the damn courtesy of asking you first? Don’t they owe you some respect?
(via TechDirt)
Nathan,
That’s unfair. Have you seen how Google displays the content of books where they don’t have permission. If you can see two sentences, you’re lucky.
There’s no “stealing” going on here at all. All they’re really doing is letting people know that there is a book that has some content on the topic you’re searching on. It’s hard to see how that wouldn’t increase sales.
I’ve asked this question in the past, and no one’s given me an answer yet to it. Is it illegal to create and sell a map which highlights points of interest? I’m assuming the answer is no.
Yet a map that highlights points of interest is the exact same thing that Google is doing. It’s creating an index of the content of the books (the map) and then allowing you to search it and pointing out the sections that correspond to what you searched for (the points of interest). What it’s likely to do is help drive business to those points of interest (the books itself).
The mapmaker is “making money” off of pointing out those points of interest to you — yet you don’t see the providers of those points of interest complaining that the map maker isn’t paying them money. In fact, with many maps, retailers and others PAY the mapmaker to include them.
So, please tell me how Google is different from the mapmaker here?
Comment by Mike Masnick | March 13, 2007
[Please excuse the long rant]
Did Google ask you permission to index your website? No??
Wow, well clearly they don’t respect you then. They are stealing your content by making a copy of it and *gasp* providing snippets for people to see without even visiting your site.
Oh well they have an opt-out provision you say? But they have that in Book Search too, so clearly that isn’t good enough.
What if I made my website in 1997, before Google even existed. I put my heart and soul into creating compelling content for it, but then went off and did other things and stopped promoting it. It went out of print you might say.
Now Google has come along and indexed the site, without my permission, copied it, stolen it. Why didn’t they ask my permission first? Even though there was no way of them knowing who I was or my contact details. It is only fair that this website never be indexed and no one ever find it, right? (never mind that if I delete it its still availiable in the Internet Archive - how dare they!)
Now, you will probably say this is a false analogy and it is much easier for people to opt out on the web (is doing some fairly advanced website management harder than sending an email to Google?)
You will probably think that by putting something on the web there is an expectation that you will get indexed, an implicit understanding you want to be found - yet this understanding did not exist before websearch and especially Google, existed and started to do it. The expectationwas created by Google’s actions. I believe that authors have a similar desire to be found. What Google is doing in no way harms them it can *only* help them - how is that not respecting them?
You say “Those authors whose books are out of print, but still in copyright, would love an opportunity to make some money off their older books, but Google’s plan involves copying them without permission”. … stealing…” then compare it to you downloading music illegaly.
Firstly, I think I’ve already established that if scanning is stealing then websearch is stealing. But further to that - would you be Ok with it if only the libraries which were doing the scanning (hence already own the books) scanned their entire libraries then only allowed people to search them internally - would that be stealing?
What if they let people externally search them and just showed snippets - is that stealing? Or is it just when Google get involved it becomes stealing? - Would this be ok if it wasnt a “140 billion dollar company”? I think you comparing what they are doing to you downloading a movie illegally is an unfair analogy. And you equate copying with stealing, when in this context clearly the copies are not being used as copies but as a means to provide something completely different - something fair-use - No one is sitting there reading all these books going “hhahaha now I never have to buy a book again”
I agree the law is unclear, and I hope you are wrong that they will lose the lawsuits and I think that would be a disaster for is one of the most important things Google has ever done, and will ever do. If it is not legal, I believe it should be, and I get the sense that you believe it shouldn’t be, so we will never agree.
Comment by mc | March 13, 2007
The issue isn’t what Google does with the books, it is how they get the books. If Google wants a copy, they should have to buy the book! If I went to the library and made a copy of the book, wouldn’t I be stealing it?
It’s legal to create a map, but I doubt its legal to make copies of another company’s map and make them available on my website, if that map is copyrighted.
And MC, Google is an internet search engine, indexing copies of other internet sites. When I put my website on the internet, it is with the understanding that anyone who wants to visit it can type in the URL and look at it, including search engines. But if someone wanted to print out my site and put it in a library, I’d have to at least decide if I wanted to give permission for that. If I published a book and sold it to a library, it would be with the understanding that the library would lend out the book for people to read, not make copies for corporations that came knocking by.
Why isn’t scanning illegal? If you own the book, scan away, but Google is taking books it didn’t pay for and making copies. How is that not illegal? Perhaps the libraries could do it and make it available for search on their websites, much like Amazon scans in books it sells, but Google has zero relationship to the books involved, and no rights regarding them. They just walk into the library and start a photocopier, metaphorically.
I compare this to walking into Blockbuster, copying all the movies on the shelves, and walking out. How is that less illegal than downloading the same movie? In fact, a corporate effort to mass copy such content sure “smells” extremely illegal in that light.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | March 13, 2007
“It’s legal to create a map, but I doubt its legal to make copies of another company’s map and make them available on my website, if that map is copyrighted.”
But that’s not what they’re doing. They’re creating a map (which is the index). They’re not copying a map. So if it’s legal to create a map, it should be just as legal to create that index. After all, it’s the same thing.
Comment by Mike Masnick | March 14, 2007
No, Mike, they’re making available to the public a map of their own design, but they are copying everyone else’s maps. Copyright infringement without intent to use, especially on this large a scale, can still be copyright infringement. It is legal to create an index, like a card catalog in a library, but it is illegal to make copies of every book in a library and just say, “Oh, don’t worry, I won’t use them”.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | March 15, 2007
Nathan, you’ve confused the metaphor here. They are making their own map. That’s what the index is. They’re not copying the map. There is no such index for them to “copy”. They’re creating it from scratch.
Now, what you’re saying is that they’re infringing in the process of creating that index — that they’re making use of others products for free (and making money off of it). But that’s not what’s happening. Just like the map situation, they’re simply using the basic content to help people find the books.
It’s exactly analogous to the map situation. In that case, you may be using someone else’s “brand” (say Nathan’s Pizza Shop) without asking permission — and making it easier for people to find Nathan’s Pizza Shop. Here, they’re using the index (map) to help people find the book (pizza shop) they want.
Logically speaking, if you find that Google’s project is illegal, so is any map that points out points of interest. Take any argument you have against Google’s project, and it can equally be applied to the map maker. They’re taking the valuable “intellectual property” of others and creating a for-profit entity to point people in the direction of that original.
You may call that infringement, but it’s not.
Comment by Mike Masnick | March 15, 2007
Mike, you’re confusing my point. Making the index is okay, at least in my mind, but copying the items in it isn’t always. In the case of internet websites, it can be argued that it is okay, because the very act of accessing a website downloads it and creates a copy, but copying a book is illegal without permission of the copyright holder.
My issue is that Google is copying the books, not indexing them. Google can do whatever it wants with the index, and Google’s public actions are fine with me. It is the copying of all these items that worries me. What gives Google the right to copy every book in existence? Even the Library of Congress doesn’t copy books! It acquires them, through whatever legal means that it does.
The location of items in the real world, used in creating a map, is public domain information. The complete content of a book is not. Creating an index of locations does not involve copying the buildings, does it? Google’s problem isn’t pointing, it’s copying.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | March 18, 2007