PulpLit.net

Boing Boing still missing the point

Grrr.... I love the folks over at BoingBoing, but they're getting all hot and bothered over people being upset about Google's Print campaign. As far as I'm concerned, they're completely missing the point.

The central question should be, is any company allowed to scan in the entire copy of copyrighted works with out the copy-holders permission?

The answer is emphatically NO. Even if Google was just using this information resource for their own uses, it is clear that doing so is completely illegal, and well outside any definition of fair use. Google creating a massive database of all the information ever published simply by borrowing books from the library and scanning them in is not an extension of using a snippet for a book review, or other traditional uses of fair use. It is entirely different; I can't see how one could argue that there is any common ground.

Such a database would be incredibly useful resource for Google (and perhaps the world), but creating such a thing would be illegal. If we want to argue that we should change copyright laws via the legislature, great. But no-one seems to be doing that. Instead, they're saying that the publishers are acting stupid, when in fact publishers are doing the only reasonable thing. I think perhaps they are conflating their own wants ("wouldn't it be great to have a massive, searchable database of all the worlds books?") with the wants of publishers ("we'd like to mantain the rights which we are paying our authors for, so we can continue to stay in business.") The argument that Google Print may in the short run allow publishers to sell more books, while most likely true, ignores the fact that in the long run it probably is not in publisher's interest to cede the thing which is the bedrock of their entire business model, namely, the right to restrict the copying of works to which a they have the rights.

That's the whole point of copyright; it's the foundation upon which the whole incentive scheme we call copyright is based. If you remove that, then people may still create creative works, but they will not be gauranteed their right to, if they choose, control the usage of that work. Without that right, anyone can make a copy of any information, and no publisher has the ability to restrict duplication of creative works.

Google's attempt to deny copyright holders their rights, even with the best of intentions, is wrong, misguided, and I dare say, evil. For those who create work and wish to release it under a Creative Commons license, or who wish their whole work to be free, they have that right. By they same token, authors and publishers who want to get paid should have the right to control what happens to their creative work as well, and Google Print, unless stopped, would undermine that right.