In Sunday’s Washington Post there was an article about Google’s effort to digitize all the books in the Stanford University Library…and their dream to digitize all the books in the world.
Here is the article “Search Me? Google Wants to Digitize Every Book. Publishers Say Read the Fine Print First” August 13, 2006
(you may have to register with The Washington Post to read it)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/12/AR2006081200886.html?sub=AR
In a nutshell, Google will digitize Stanford’s collection and provide what they consider “fair use” of the material. They will provide the ability to search the text of the books, but will only show “snippets” of the work, what they feel fits the “fair use” stipulations of copyright law. I won’t go into the complicated details, but suffice to say that the Author’s Guild and several publishers have filed suit against Google.
I’m ambivalent.
As an author, it makes a frisson of trepidation crawl up my spine, like discovering someone stealing my book without paying for it. Google argues against this, but the gist of the lawsuits have to do with using material without renumeration for the publisher or author, who create the book in the first place.
As a researcher, however, my response is, “Wow!” Imagine all that information at my fingertips! Imagine me being able to enter “Castle Inn Brighton 1816” (a setting of my next Warner book, Desire In His Eyes, aka Blake’s story, now in the revision stage). It would take me hours in a library, days perhaps, to search out such information. Wouldn’t it be great if I could have it at my fingertips?
Then I think of out-of-print books, like The Regency Companion by Sharon Laudermilk and Teresa L Hamlin. I am lucky enough to have obtained a copy of this regency research classic years ago by bidding $40 on ebay on a Thanksgiving evening, but now ABEbooks.com lists this book as going for a low of $224.50 and a high of $595.00. Obviously this puts the book out of reach for 99.9% of regency writers and readers, but wouldn’t it be great if everyone had access to its information?
Well, what would be great is if Laudermilk and Hamlin would just authorize a re-release of the book. I’d happily buy another copy! If it were a searchable e-book copy, like Dee Hendrickson’s Regency Reference Book, I’d like it even better.
I empathize with the fact that Laudermilk and Hamlin didn’t get one penny of the money I spent on their book, and would not get a penny of that $595, if anyone chose to spend such an amount. If I think of this being multiplied a brazillion amount of times for every author—-shudder! There goes that frisson again.
What do you, dear readers and friends, think of Google’s plan? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Ooh, difficult topic, Diane! I think I sort of feel as you do — a bit confused!!! I’m definitely worried about the ramifications…
I’ve heard different stories, different predictions…and am still unsure. I suspect it will be much worse for authors of nonfiction books, the sort one does research from…
Cara
If they’re digitizing something that is no longer in print, hasn’t been for ages, isn’t likely to ever be reissued or reprinted, and is hideously expensive and hard to find–then I don’t feel uneasy. In fact, I’d be ecstatic to see certain rare treatises available online versus having to read them at the library on microfiche.
However, I think the “fair use” argument falls apart for books that are fairly current. The thing is, people could search the Google database for something they would normally have found in a bookstore or a library, where the author and publisher would have made profit on the book sale.
It’s a part of the entire e-book discussion, I think. Some people feel a sense of entitlement to free stuff, but free stuff doesn’t send authors’ kids to college.
Elena
I think that whatever Google says, their approach undermines the restrictions copyright is supposed to enforce. “Fair use” always depended to a large extent on the willingness of individual users to honor it. But it was aided by the fact that in most cases, violating fair use by (for example) copying an entire book was difficult and expensive. Easier just to buy a copy.
One could check a book out of a library rather than buy it, but generally if a book was in any demand, many libraries would have to own a copy, which guaranteed a certain market to authors and publishers.
I’m basically in favor of things being available online; but it has to be done in a way that doesn’t eliminate the incentives for writing books in the first place. The problem is that computers and the internet make things way too easy. This is great for books that are hard to find–for example, through my university library I can get access to scanned-in versions of virtually every printed book in English up to the beginning of the 19th century. But for current books, there’s a great danger that online access will kill the market, especially as ebook readers improve and come down in price.
What’s needed is a way to allow online access, but to compensate authors and publishers. Many studies have been made on how this could be done; but no one has made any effort to try to install such a system. The obvious thing is to pay a royalty for each access of a book that is still under copyright. That requires a lot of bookkeeping, so naturally Google doesn’t want to do it; but morally they should. Computers excel at that kind of thing, so it is certainly feasible.
BTW, on the other hand, I think in another way copyright protection has gone way too far in the direction of protecting the author’s rights over the interests of the public. After you’ve been dead for 75 years, I really doubt that you’ll care whether or not your work is in the public domain. But Congress has been pushing copyright protections back repeatedly, so that essentially nothing has entered the public domain that was published since 1923.
Todd-who-clearly-likes-to-hear-the-sound-of-his-own-typing
Todd, you expressed the concerns very clearly. I think when ereaders are perfected, the publishing industry will change. I do think that the younger generations are going to prefer reading on an electronic device.
I love the idea of easy access to information and really credit Google with making that happen but the author and publisher do need to make money!
Thanks, Diane! It’s something I’ve thought about quite a bit as more and more stuff goes online.
Todd-who-thinks-writers-should-make-lots-and-lots-of-money-and-then-support-him