According to the Wall Street Journal, it looks like Google might be planning to offer digital rentals of new books in the near future: http://spadassin.blogspot.com/

That should throw a little more fat on the fire.

Eric - I think you may be missing the point. According to Google's plan, they're not copying just a few sentences.

They're copying the entire book, Google intend to scan the entire work of every book into a database.

So yes - mucho greatness to the people, as we can search for a word in the entirety of any text. However Google are reproducing the entire text of a book without the premission of the author.

I can't go and photocopy an entire book, no matter for what use. Neither can Google. That's what copyright is about.

It's not being anal, I've got a short story or two up on the web - they didn't make me any money (I'm self admittedly not good enough). But if someone else wants to reproduce the damn things, they had damn well better ask me! Even if you will "Make me money" I want to know about it first - remember your good idea, might be my ideological hell.

I agree with Charlie about the basic problem of whether Google are getting permission from the people with the right to give it. And, sepending on contracts, that might sometimes be the publisher. Arguably, the publisher is the obvious person to ask first.

A library is buying, and indexing, and lending, physical copies of the book, or physical objects generally. It's the same with DVD rental, and often the DVDs a different editions for rental and purchase.

Google may have to buy the physical copy to scan-and-index, and the index is their work, but after that they are in the business of creating new copies. "fair use" gives limited statutory permission.

I'm afraid I see a rhetorical pattern in all this, common in the propaganda of organisations such as the RIAA, which presents copyrights as something which only corporations have. And some of the processes advocated effectively exclude small copyright holders. They're not unlike some of the effects of the UK's video classification laws, where the fees for the certificate are based on running time, a cost of Pounds per copy for a short production run, and pence per copy for the movie undustry.

Jonathan -- it took a second for me to realize your post was predictive, but if that's what's to come it sounds great.

Anything (legal) that makes information easier to find and at the same time helps you discover new things you wouldn't have found on your own is good in my book.

So I asked the 2006 release of Google, with my voice interface, "Who used the word Chaos most often in the Jan/Feb 2006 Analog?"

Google flashed on my HDTV and told me in Brin-voice:

"Sun of Suns, Part III" by Karl Schroeder, illustrated by George Krauter, 6 links.
* "Images flashed across these squares like heat lightning, and everwhere, there was a CHAOS of noise." [p.189]
* "Whatever the CHAOS of its facade, inside at least the library seemed remarkably well organized." [p.204]
* "A CHAOS of screaming men and clashing swords surrounded her." [p.209]
* "They made enough CHAOS that we were able to get away." [p.213]
* "She fell off the gallery into th CHAOS of broken furniture and Hayden turned in time to see Travis, clutching his shoulder, stagger into the embrace of the wind and be snatched away by it." [p.214]
* "Through the closing hatch he could see the lights of the Unseen Hand flickering through a CHAOS of whipping branches." [p.219]

[#] subscribed HERE to Analog
[#] download these books by Karl Schroeder
[#] bid on art by George Krauter
[#] enter interactive "Kings of Chaos"
[#] download CHAOS: INFINITY [Science Fiction Poems], $10.00
[#] track Xanadu Micropayments to Karl Schroeder, George Krauter, and Dell Magazines (a division of Crosstown Publications]
[#] stock quotes for GOOG, DELL, XNDU, XAOS

I guess it depends on what the definition of 'money' is. Google is not ‘directly’ charging for their service. Plus ‘fair’ use is used by, for instance, reviewers, educationists, and the government controlled libraries; but they have their charges as well. I’m just trying to figure out how Google is any different then a magazine other then - it’s more useful.

Creative Commons is more the authors’ rights to where COCOA would seem more fluid concerning the technical aspects of how it is carried out. Maybe a COCOA wiki? I will sign it. There are definitely allot of concerns about how this new ex. Google service could/would be compromised, but I really think it will give a boost to CC.

NOTE: Just got ‘A Feast for Crows’ and it really is great after first two hundred pages. (I’m still doing paper because - don’t have a decent flat panel yet. Maybe the new ‘electronic paper’ will help me switch. Can’t hurt though)

Oh,

just for the record, fair use according to the copyright societies in the UK is paying to copy anything from a work, no exemptions. More generally, it is accepted there is an educational/research exemption which permits the reproduction of 5% or 1 chapter, or 1 article from 1 magazine, as long as it is not done for profit.

So, any of us could copy a chapter of one of Charles' books to go and write an essay about, for example.

I have to agree with the conclusion that the 'default' display Google intends for copyrighted works, with ~30 words of text containing the search term(s) and basic bibliographic information, is parallel in use and purpose to library card catalogs, book reviews, and indexing of web pages. On the face of it, it's fair use, doesn't require prior permission, and I'm not even sure about an opt out being required.

The fact that Google may make money from producing this index doesn't determine against fair use; if that were the case, any publication which charges readers for purchase and contains book reviews, and especially those that are *all* book reviews, would be in violation of copyright. I think it's pretty obvious that things like the New York Review are kosher, ergo short quotes are cool whether or not you make money off providing them.

For the extended viewing of multiple pages available under the Publisher program, however, you are absolutely right that it is not the publishers alone that need to be consulted - permission for these greater excerpts to be shown needs to be obtained from the actual rights holders. This is a large potential liability for Google, and your concerns here about the treatment of authors seems fully warranted. In short, I think in the long run they may run into more problems with assuming that any publishers contacting them actually have the rights they claim, than with the more limited fair use excerpts.

Actually, it seems to me like Google is almost bending over backwards too much for publishers. In trying out the beta, I did multiple searches for items known to be in the public domain, such as _Alice in Wonderland_. However, the top search results are invariably newer editions, still in copyright, with all the copyright restrictions in place, and it's very difficult to locate older editions that don't contain those restrictions. They really need to add a utility, at least in the Advanced Search, that lets you specify not just publication date but actually which program they've scanned it in under - public domain, regular copyright, or with rights holder's explicit permission - and filter your searches accordingly.

The lack of this kind of filtering mechanism actually favors publishers' newer editions over public domain editions, and while I certainly want to see publishers like Wildside Press rewarded for bringing back the works of James Branch Cabell, for purposes of doing research Gutenberg ends up remaining the better resource.

As an information professional I'd question whether any copyright clearance is needed to produce a separate index to a work.

The works I've seen on the indexing field assert the index belongs to the originator of the index - i.e. it is a new peice of work.

As a reader, I'm not convinced that showing roughly three sentences from a copyrighted work does the author any harm, at least under American copyright law. This is a service I'd very much like--and it would cause me to spend hundreds of dollars more on books each year.

Basically, full-text search of books--especially out-of-print but still-copyrighted works--would be the best thing for bibliophiles and readers since the invention of the public library. But as a practical matter, securing official permission for obscure books more than a few years old is simply impossible. So if you tell me that Google can only index books after securing written permission, you're telling me I can't have this wonderful, amazing service.

And if you tell me I can't have this wonderful, amazing service because you won't be getting royalties for three sentences, I'm going to side with Google. I will also submit public comments the next time the US Library of Congress reviews the relevant fair-use exemptions.

Now, I do agree with you on several things:

  * Google needs to offer an opt-out to individual authors--something along the lines of robots.txt. The proposal our host mentions seems like a step in the right direction.
  * For anything beyond a few sentences, Google does need to secure permission from the copyright holder, not the publisher.

(It should also be noted that if fair use does not permit indexing and showing 3 sentences, Google web search is completely illegal, too. Expect Google to fight *that* conclusion to its bottom dollar.)

I rather like Andrew's typo or joke: "untility" as the antiparticle of "utility."

Note also that the U.S. Government handles copyright registration through the Library of Congress, but two other forms of IP (intellectual property) through the United States Patent and Trademark Office whose home page is www.uspto.gov/

I wonder if Google is actually confusing copyrights and patents, or deniably pretending to. I deeply agree with Charlie in this matter. I own the copyright for what I write, when I write it. I may choose to assign part of it to someone else, for compensation, or to open source it in various ways, or to register the copyright. I am not as clear on how the EU apparently refuses to let you pretend that you are not the author of what you write. In the US, Isaac Asimov was correct in telling me "in a contract, anything is negotiable, including your name, and the date." Brussels and timestamps make that a provincial theory -- or is it?

Since the writing2 thread was closed, I don't know where to mention this, but my son loved "The Family Trade" as much as I did, and is equally eager for sequelae. Mr. Stross has at least two generations of fans in my family; I regret that I do not know what my father thought of his recent work.

I'm not so sure Google will do a good job handling copyright either. For instance, when I did a search for Ambrose Bierce, all the results that came up were for books in print, listed as under copyright , from multiple publishers -- even though his stuff is all out of copyright.

Since Google is scanning the actual pages rather than text, I can understand why they'd have to go by the copyrights of the edition the scanned, but it seems pretty shoddy of them to not scan any of the original texts that are out of copy right. After all, Project Gutenburg has hand them for years.

In short, I guess I'm questioning the untility of Google Print given the incompleteness of the database.

http://www.patent.gov.uk/copy/definition.htm (Note this is the UK site - some differences may be found in US CR).

The minute you publish it - it's copyright. You can proclaim it copyleft or open (if you have the authority to do so), but still.

Mike - You CAN'T give google premission to scan and publish anyone's work other than your own, and then as long as it's not under contract to a publisher.

"Fair use" infers the right to print small amounts of the text as examples, for use in reviews - legal documents - etc. There are very specific realms of fair use. They nearly all involve not making money of the reprint of your work.

Also note - scanning the work is not fair use. As you've just used the publishers type-setting, font, etc. Any one of which may not be public domain (as a very unlikely but possible example - a publisher may use their own in-house type set. Which they would own, and you have to pay to use).

Copyright is a very interesting little beast - often abused by the wrong people, and very much misunderstood by others.

Oooooooooh...

Hark at Harlan Ellison.

Mr. Stross is correct that [in USA at least] "copyright inheres in a work automatically." There are many places online where one can learn more about the difference between having a copyright and registering a copyright.

There are experts in SFWA and the National Writers Union who have online explanations, and NWU has a printed booklet which is rather nice.

For cyberhistorical reasons, I refer also to the nonfictional 1993:
WRITERS RIGHTS DAY, L.A. Speech

The people whom I introduced and thanked mostly have new cogent things to add to the ongoing debates.

Finally: speaking personally, I'm not too hung up on copyright -- as long as I get paid money for writing, I'm not too fussy about how I get paid. By the same token, if someone else is getting money for my writing, I want my cut of it.

Normal lending libraries don't charge for access, they're a public service. I expect my cut of their profits, which should ideally be zero percent of zero.

Profit-making library services are another matter.

(Note that this is not the way the law works at present, but almost the opposite: I get a payment from normal lending libraries via PLR, but probably nothing from a hypothetical private profit-making library that's eating into my sales!)