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US Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8: The Congress shall have Power… 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;
Intellectual property is not a right. Intellectual property is never mentioned in the Constitution. The founding fathers were interested in promoting the progress of science and the useful arts. Their strategy in pursuing this goal was to reward authors and inventors with a limited monopoly.
What we have in 2005 is a system which has completely lost sight of that goal. In pushing the term of copyright into infinity (at least to us, since works published in our lifetimes won’t enter the public domain until long after we’re dead), the social contract between people and government has been violated. The public domain has been plundered in order to enrich a small group. The 20th century’s creative works, arguably the greatest in the history of mankind, have been stolen from the public. I applaud any individual or group that undermines this system by any means, legal or otherwise.
Home recording of TV shows was illegal until the Supreme Court legalized it in 1984’s Betamax decision. The studios argued that they should be able to opt in to home recording by embedding a “you may/may not” record flag in a broadcast’s Vertical Blanking Interval. The courts rejected this, because even though Sony was proposing to give the public the tools to record every single feature film aired on broadcast TV, the fact that this was a use that wouldn’t substantially undermine the studios’ legitimate licensing revenue made it a fair use.
Today, Google proposes to scan in books — not for the purpose of distributing or copying them, but for the purpose of compiling full-text indices of them. They propose to do this because it will sell more books and make Google more valuable (just as Sony would be more valuable if its VCRs could record all TV shows).
In any event: the point of my post is that the AG objects to Google Print because they say that it’s immoral to assume consent from anyone who doesn’t object. Nevertheless, the AG has brough suit on *my* behalf without my consent, and isn’t even offering me the opportunity to opt out. If the AG wants to sue Google because opt-out is immoral, let it secure the explicit permission of every author it purports to represent here, or simply sue on its own behalf.
Cory Doctorow
as always, SOPHIA is,simply,SOPHIA.the one,and only. BELLISSIMA.