Publisher Teaches Google A Lesson
Publishers hate Google, for the most part, because of its arrogant opt-out position on book scanning in Google Book Search. So its no surprise that at the BookExpo America in New York a publisher decided to teach Google a lesson. He went into the Google booth and stole a laptop. Just walked off with it. They waited at a distance for an hour till someone noticed it was missing, then returned it, telling the attendees they were just treating Google the way Google treats them.
See, the publishers are mad because Google scans books without asking permission. If a publisher objects, Google will not scan a book, but without an objection Google does as it pleases. The logic behind the laptop theft goes the same way: Since Google didn’t put up a sign saying “Don’t steal these laptops”, why surely that means it was okay to steal them. After all, they didn’t opt-out!
It’s delicious irony, and if you have any sense of humor, even if you agree with Google, it was a pretty funny incident.
Some people don’t like jokes that make points they disagree with.
Funny thing is, I may be coming around on this whole thing. Lawrence Lessig has a really great post about the whole Google Book Search controversy, explaining this:
Remember (and I did a 30 minute preso here to explain it) Google Books proposed to scan 18,000,000 books. Of those, 16% were in the public domain, and 9% were in copyright, and in print. That means, 75% of the books Google would scan are out of print but presumptively under copyright.
The publishers and Google already have deals for the 9%. And being in the public domain, no one needs a deal for the 16%. So the only thing the publishers might be complaining about is the 75% which are out of print and presumptively under copyright.
I’m not totally convinced, but I’m getting there. Google has not been forthcoming with hard numbers stating their case, and it is their typical arrogance that is more of the problem. Assuming that Google has deals for all of the 9%, and the 75% are out of print in the sense of being old and abandoned (and not just a year or two old and not having new copies made), Google might be just misunderstood here.
And if Google is being misunderstood, that’s their fault, as usual. I’ve never seen a company that seemed to want to give people a reason to distrust it, till now.
“I’ve never seen a company that seemed to want to give people a reason to distrust it, till now.”
That’s an ironic statement coming from someone who also blogs about Microsoft.
Comment by Frank | June 13, 2007
Some companies you don’t always trust, but you know what they’re about, like Microsoft. Google acts like you can trust it, and thinks you can trust it, when in fact it has done a lot of things that don’t exactly engender trust.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | June 13, 2007
Speaking about Google and evilness; has Google ever explained why www.google.cn is “censored” from us?
I mean, we all know China filters the internet. But why does Google filter us from China? I’m being redirected to the dot com Google the second I try to visit www.google.cn .
Comment by Tim | June 14, 2007