Haduken

HOWTO: Misunderstand American copyright law

by: Ross

Google Print has stirred up quite a controversy lately. Most recently two crossfire-esque dueling politicos have joined forces to deride Google Print as the end of writer’s rights and the end of all creativity as we know it! Surely if a Democrat and a Republican can agree on something it must be true!

Actually no. Let me set some things straight.

First a brief summary of Google Print. Google wants to scan in every book ever written and make them available via the internet. If the work’s copyright allows it, they want to provide the full text. If not, they want to provide short snippets of the text. The whole shebang will be keyword searchable. Ok? Onward we go!

Ahh, the authors begin by harkening back to our founding fathers and that great all-star American document: the Constitution.

And so we find ourselves joining together to fight a $90 billion company bent on unilaterally changing copyright law to their benefit and in turn denying publishers and authors the rights granted to them by the U.S. Constitution.

And in case y’all don’t have the Constitution memorized (shame shame), Article I Section 8 Clause 8 says:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

How exactly is Google “unilaterally changing copyright law?” Are they extending the “limited Times” to the entire life of the author plus seventy years? Oh wait, no that was Disney. It seems — apparently — Google runs afoul of the Constitution in two ways: 1) Providing snippets of the copyrighted texts, and 2) Collecting ad revenue from Google Print searches. To quote:

The creators and owners of these copyrighted works will not be compensated, nor has Google defined what a “snippet” is: a paragraph? A page? A chapter? A whole book? Meanwhile Google will gain a huge new revenue stream by selling ad space on library search results.

Actually if the authors spent fives seconds reading the Google Print webpage they would have found that “for books that we have scanned from a library which are still in copyright, you will only be able to view the bibliographic information and a few short sentences of text around your search term.”

But isn’t it still wrong and reprehensible to copy even the smallest iota of a copyrighted work without the author’s permission? Nope. From Copyright.gov on the four part test to determine if something is Fair Use:

  1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
  2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
  3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
  4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Number three is what we are interested in. If Google scanned in the entirety of Steven D. Levitt’s Freakonomics and made it available for consumption over teh i-nets then of course that would be illegal. But providing a few short sentences — “in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole” — would be insignificant. The simple idea of fair use might blow you away; you can thank the RIAA for deleting the concept of Fair Use from America culture.

Next the article claims authors must “opt-out” of Google Print if they don’t want their works online. False. First off, it is opt-in if you want your complete works to show up. The owner of the work, which may be the publisher and not the author, must opt-in. Second, you can’t opt-out of fair use. It is my right as an American to quote what ever I want. You can see I’ve quoted several things from several places already in this very article. That is my right! But, with Google being sensible, if you join their publisher program, you can request to have works removed — if you own the rights to it of course.

And finally how can you argue against this?

And have you ever tried to get a live person on the phone at an Internet company?

It is obvious to me now that because sometimes it is difficult to talk to a live person at an “Internet company” Google is trying to twist American copyright law to their own evil desires.

Comments.

Jump to comment form

  1. great article.

    people forget that the constitution allows copyright for the benefit of the public and NOT for the benefit of the creators.

    — midas | @

  2. Thanks man! Yeah I seriously believe that is totally the RIAA’s fault. The want to convince Americans that they have no fairuse at all and that it never existed!

    I mean preaching to the choir but still.

    — MaxPower | @

  3. If you go to a bookstore and open a book and read a paragraph, you are STEALING!

    — RMSzero | @

  4. I just read the actual article and it made me even more annoyed than the quotes in Max’s post.

    I can walk into any bookstore and stand and read any book for as long as the bookstore stays open. Then, if I want to take the book home, I can go to any library and do just that. All for free. I don’t see how google’s plan destroys someone’s intellectual property any more than that does.

    And I don’t see how google is so evil in its desire to make money off a really good idea, capital, and investment, while providing a free and useful service. That sounds like good old-fashioned capitalism to me.

    — RMSzero | @

  5. here is an issue in fairness to the sue-ers. when print was out before, they had a countermeasure in place to make sure you didnt just read the whole thing online. it had to do with the infamous google cookie and various encrypted stuff to make sure you only read like 3 pages every 48 hours or something. some guy posted a method for it that would allow you to download whole books in pdf.

    the catch though is you need to get a large number of valid google cookies first, one for each 3 pages you want to copy. so you need to harvest them over a matter of weeks, then write some code to automate the cookie swapping process.

    anyways, it was a neat experiment, but it would prolly be easier to goto B&N with a laptop and a hand scanner. also, afaik, none of that is at issue in this complaint.

    -midas

    — midas | @

  6. Here’s a decent counterargument:

    http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,123360,00.asp

    — RMSzero | @

  7. there’s chatter that google may do an OS. how insane would that be?
    also a free nationwide wireless internet.

    — Wolf | @

  8. i think all the books ever written should be fully searchable and readable on the internet.

    i mean people wouldnt stop buying books or reading analog books.

    — havoc | @

  9. it would be be more of a resource than a way for people to read books.

    — havoc | @

  10. RMS: now that was a thoughtful and well argued article. Much better than the WT’s. I still feel like the mp3.com case and this case might be different. I am going to make it a point today to read the decisions on that case.

    This google print thing is different — I think — because *no one* is allowed access to the database of scans. Not even copyright owners. So I feel like there *is* a subtle difference there.

    I will read the decisions and get back to you.

    — MaxPower | @

  11. that mp3.com case was dumb if you ask me. it is fairly similar to this though.

    — midas | @

  12. Ok I just read the court opinion from UMG vs. MP3.com.

    Here is the important quote from the opinion I think (emphasis mine):

    Regarding the third factor — “the amount and substantiality of the portion [of the copyrighted work] use [by the copier] in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole” — it is undisputed that defendant copies, and replays, the entirety of the copyrighted works here in issue, thus again negating any claim of fair use.

    I think the difference between the MP3.com case and Google is the amount of access to the copies of the copyrighted work. No where in the MP3.com opinion does it really talk about that — alone — making a copy of a copyrighted work is illegal. At least in this opinion, copying the work is always paired with replaying it in its entirety. Which Google has no intention of doing.

    Also this is funny to me:

    Copyright, however, is not designed to afford consumer protection or convenience but, rather, to protect the copyrightholders’ property interests

    I’ll leave it to midas to find an applicable page/quote/explanation for that.

    — MaxPower | @

  13. The potential for Google Print to inflict such harm is real, especially for the authors and publishers of nonfiction reference works. Why would you buy a cookbook or a self-help manual if you could find the recipe or tip you needed from a quick, free Google search?

    Um, can’t you already find pretty much any recipe and/or self-help tip from a quick, free Google search?

    [Fixed block quote -- Ed.]

    — RMSzero | @

  14. I guess the code tag != the blockquote tag. MY BAD.

    That was from the pcworld article btw.

    — RMSzero | @

  15. i mean the quote is right there in your article:

    To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

    copyright does not exist in america for the benefit or protection of creators. it exists to promote the progress of science and useful arts. anyone who says otherwise either doesn’t know what he is talking about or is proposing a constitutional amendment. the copyright holders are means to an end.

    — midas | @

  16. http://print.google.com

    Up till now, this whole discussion was carried out on a theoretical plane. But I just tried to use this thing a little bit.

    Can I just say that I am in love with it. Seriously, in. Love.

    Google has my heart, I can’t lie.

    — RMSzero | @

  17. yeah it is pretty neat. imagine if you are trying to remember something from a book you read, but you cant remember the page number. instead of flipping thru the pages, search on google, get the page number, pick it up off the shelf, and go right to it.

    i mean it has infinitely more value to someone that already has access to a book (either owning it or in a library) than to someone who doesnt.

    -midas

    — midas | @

  18. Virginia Blog Carnival X

    Hello Ladies and Gentlemen and welcome to the 10th edition of the official (not that there is any measure of officiality of blog carnivals, but saying official sounds better) Virginia Blog Carnival. Please sit back, relax and enjoy the best that the Co…

    — The (not so) Daily Me | @

Comment.