All Your Books Are Belong to Google

[Nice Squirrel]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/16/us-google-books-idUSKCN0SA1S020151016

A U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday that Google's massive effort to scan millions of books for an online library does not violate copyright law, rejecting claims from a group of authors that the project illegally deprives them of revenue.

 

[Malintent]

It is "fair use". Google has been scanning books for like 10 years. they index them for searchability, but only provide a 'snippet' of content to users. The intent is to allow search engine users to determine if a book has the content they are looking for.
The class action claims lost revenue. Google claims that if anything they are helping people find the books they want to purchase and therefore increasing potential revenue.

I think I have to agree with Google on this. Sounds like a case of fair use to me. Perhaps Google should offer to 'disappear' these authors from Google search results.. if that is what they think will increase their sales. Cause, you know, if I never heard of it I am going to buy it... somehow.. magically.

 

[fromderinside]

It is "fair use". Google has been scanning books for like 10 years. they index them for searchability, but only provide a 'snippet' of content to users. The intent is to allow search engine users to determine if a book has the content they are looking for.
The class action claims lost revenue. Google claims that if anything they are helping people find the books they want to purchase and therefore increasing potential revenue.

I think I have to agree with Google on this. Sounds like a case of fair use to me. Perhaps Google should offer to 'disappear' these authors from Google search results.. if that is what they think will increase their sales. Cause, you know, if I never heard of it I am going to buy it... somehow.. magically.

Shame is isn't a derivative. Then there's profit in it for everyone except the poor jerks who took mortgages.

 

[arkirk]

It is "fair use". Google has been scanning books for like 10 years. they index them for searchability, but only provide a 'snippet' of content to users. The intent is to allow search engine users to determine if a book has the content they are looking for.
The class action claims lost revenue. Google claims that if anything they are helping people find the books they want to purchase and therefore increasing potential revenue.

I think I have to agree with Google on this. Sounds like a case of fair use to me. Perhaps Google should offer to 'disappear' these authors from Google search results.. if that is what they think will increase their sales. Cause, you know, if I never heard of it I am going to buy it... somehow.. magically.

Shame is isn't a derivative. Then there's profit in it for everyone except the poor jerks who took mortgages.

Do they scan the entire book and then provide a "snippet" of content so you can BUY THE REST FROM THEM? Get the rest for free from them? This issue is still up in the air. I don't think our current Supreme Court has been making wise decisions that can last too long without severe consequences for some Americans....try Citizens United on for size. This Supreme Court is so prejudiced in favor of large corporations it seems almost a rubber stamp for whatever they wish.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It is "fair use". Google has been scanning books for like 10 years. they index them for searchability, but only provide a 'snippet' of content to users. The intent is to allow search engine users to determine if a book has the content they are looking for.
The class action claims lost revenue. Google claims that if anything they are helping people find the books they want to purchase and therefore increasing potential revenue.

I think I have to agree with Google on this. Sounds like a case of fair use to me. Perhaps Google should offer to 'disappear' these authors from Google search results.. if that is what they think will increase their sales. Cause, you know, if I never heard of it I am going to buy it... somehow.. magically.

Yeah, I don't see that their scanning is in any way piracy. I can't see how an author would object to something that makes their works more visible. Perhaps they're afraid it will show their works up as crap.

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Shame is isn't a derivative. Then there's profit in it for everyone except the poor jerks who took mortgages.

Do they scan the entire book and then provide a "snippet" of content so you can BUY THE REST FROM THEM? Get the rest for free from them? This issue is still up in the air. I don't think our current Supreme Court has been making wise decisions that can last too long without severe consequences for some Americans....try Citizens United on for size. This Supreme Court is so prejudiced in favor of large corporations it seems almost a rubber stamp for whatever they wish.

They provide a link that you can use to buy the book, assuming it's on the market at all. I don't think they're the ones selling it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It is "fair use". Google has been scanning books for like 10 years. they index them for searchability, but only provide a 'snippet' of content to users. The intent is to allow search engine users to determine if a book has the content they are looking for.
The class action claims lost revenue. Google claims that if anything they are helping people find the books they want to purchase and therefore increasing potential revenue.

I think I have to agree with Google on this. Sounds like a case of fair use to me. Perhaps Google should offer to 'disappear' these authors from Google search results.. if that is what they think will increase their sales. Cause, you know, if I never heard of it I am going to buy it... somehow.. magically.

Yeah, they put out bits which would make it more likely to be found and potentially purchased.

 

[RavenSky]

My understanding is that all of the books are out of print.

I can't imagine that the authors or publishers would object to Google selling e-versions as long as they got their royalties, so is it that Google is not paying royalties?

 

[SimpleDon]

I have bought many eBooks after reading Google's excerpts. Most I buy from Amazon through the link provided by Google. I am sure that Google gets a small percentage of the sales price as a finder's fee.

I have a couple of them in Google's browser based reader Google Play Books. I don't really like their reader very well and wish that I could convert them to Kindle.

 

[SimpleDon]

It is my understanding that books that are still under copyright that Google only posts fair use excepts.

I think that some here are confusing Google Books with the Project Gutenberg which is scanning out of copyright books (and some that the authors have donated to the project to be distributed free of costs.) Google does scan the Gutenberg books and does offer them for download, all legal in the US and acceptable to Project Gütenberg. I volunteer at Project Gütenberg proof reading scans and translating German technical books into English.

 

[Jayjay]

If it's "fair use" for Google to scan books as long as they only provide short samples publicly, I wonder what kind of predecent that sets for movies or music? It should be equally legal for someone to record and maintain a database of entire movies, run them all through speech recognition system and setup a search engine to allow searching from movie dialogue or song lyrics. That should throw an interesting wrench in music and movie industry lobby's wheels.

Though realistically, I agree that probably what's "legal" is determined by who does it and who is it done to, rather than what's being done.

 

[SimpleDon]

Fair use is a legal term that allows exception to copyright laws in the US.

 Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship. It provides for the legal, unlicensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test.

 

[Jayjay]

Fair use is a legal term that allows exception to copyright laws in the US.

 Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship. It provides for the legal, unlicensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test.

Yes I know what fair use is, that's pretty universal notion. My point is, if there was a company that tried to do the same thing (and in same scale) with movies or music that Google is doing with books, I think it'd be shut down faster than you can google "RIAA".

 

[Malintent]

Youtube would be an example of a resource that publishes video content as fair use (and takes down that which is posted out of compliance).

 

[KeepTalking]

It is "fair use". Google has been scanning books for like 10 years. they index them for searchability, but only provide a 'snippet' of content to users. The intent is to allow search engine users to determine if a book has the content they are looking for.
The class action claims lost revenue. Google claims that if anything they are helping people find the books they want to purchase and therefore increasing potential revenue.

But if you buy the right book the first time, every time, you are depriving the publishers of the ability to sell you books that you thought you needed, but that are total crap. Therefor they are losing the revenue that they would otherwise have made by depriving potential readers a peek behind the cover.

 

[arkirk]

Fair use is a legal term that allows exception to copyright laws in the US.

 Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship. It provides for the legal, unlicensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test.

I don't think fair use would apply to copying the entire book in the name of search engine. I franky like the idea of intellectual property being released free of charge to users and also like the idea of it being searchable. What I have problems with is what would be google's motivation for copying all of this stuff without there being some profit in it?

 

[ZiprHead]

Fair use is a legal term that allows exception to copyright laws in the US.

I don't think fair use would apply to copying the entire book in the name of search engine. I franky like the idea of intellectual property being released free of charge to users and also like the idea of it being searchable. What I have problems with is what would be google's motivation for copying all of this stuff without there being some profit in it?

I tend to agree with this. I also think just the actual copying of the entire book is a violation in itself.

 

[SimpleDon]

Fair use is a legal term that allows exception to copyright laws in the US.

I don't think fair use would apply to copying the entire book in the name of search engine. I franky like the idea of intellectual property being released free of charge to users and also like the idea of it being searchable. What I have problems with is what would be google's motivation for copying all of this stuff without there being some profit in it?

I am sure that Google makes money here the same way that they make almost all of their money. They allow consumers to click through to say Amazon to buy the books that they have sampled and they are paid a couple of percent of the price of the book from Amazon as a finders fee.

Google adds the entire book to its search engine but only allows you to read about twenty pages or so then it tells you this,

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I opened Google Books and searched for "marginal productivity." The first book offered was John Pullen's The Marginal Productivity Theory of Distribution; a Critical History. I was only allowed to see about twenty pages containing about 23 of the 97 hits for the search in the book.

If you click "View eBook" you are offered Amazon's Kindle version of the book for 30+ dollars.

 

[SimpleDon]

Here is the last page of the table of contents and the first page that you can see, page 23. The text in the book actually starts on page 8, with Basic Concepts. The pages between are not included in the preview.

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[Jayjay]

I'm undecided whether this is a good thing, but I do think that if Google can do this with books, then anyone should be able to do the same with music, television and movies.

 

[SimpleDon]

I don't think fair use would apply to copying the entire book in the name of search engine. I franky like the idea of intellectual property being released free of charge to users and also like the idea of it being searchable. What I have problems with is what would be google's motivation for copying all of this stuff without there being some profit in it?

I tend to agree with this. I also think just the actual copying of the entire book is a violation in itself.

The books come from two different streams. The Partner Program in which they put excerpts of copyrighted books in the scheme with the permission of the publisher as a way to sell the books. And the library project in which they scan in out of copyright and out of print books provided by about 40 libraries around the world. See below or here and here for an explanation.

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I don't see anything wrong with this.​