Big Ten Schools Recommit to Google Books Project

CNN reports that twelve major universities around the country have agreed to have substantial portions of their libraries included in the Google Books project. Around ten million volumes are expected to be included in the project. Participating schools include the University of Chicago and the 11 universities in the Big Ten athletic conference: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin. "The committee said Google will scan and index materials 'in a manner consistent with copyright law.' Google generally makes available the full text of books in the public domain and limited portions of copyrighted books. Several other universities, including Harvard and California, already have signed up to let Google scan their libraries. "

Copyright Law

is just ridiculous now. If Google gets restricted from posting educational information because of copyright law its just going to be pathetic. I mean, isn't that what libraries are for - providing /free/ access to books??

Re:Copyright Law

The books have to purchased first.. then you can read them from that physical location for "free" (for a variable definition of free)
The bloody marvelous venture from Google changes that.

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I'd be really interested if anyone against Google's book indexing could advance any kind of coherent explanation for how it differs legally from Google's web indexing, which (almost) nobody seems to have a problem with.

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I think it's been hashed to death.

We assume the copyright owner is the person/entity who has final say over who can read their work and under which circumstances. We assume we are talking about Google books, were anybody can come, type a book title and sta

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I understand the mechanics of each case. You say fair use is a different matter, but I was asking for some sort of legal argument, which would essentially boil down to how the two cases differ in a way that matters in a fair use test. I really still haven'

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We assume the copyright owner is the person/entity who has final say over who can read their work and under which circumstances.

Basing your argument on a false premise is not a good start. Copyright law decides who can make copies of copyrighted works, not the copyright holder. In some cases only the copyright holder can authorize some reproduction/republishing, while in others t

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I'm all for the book indexing, but still, you can't put a robots.txt on a book. This is an important difference which allows website operators to opt out of web indexing.

Respecting robots.txt is a courtesy from those crawling the pages. Some engines ignore them. Legally, robots.txt means very little. Google is providing a way for book publishers to opt out of Google books, and many people criticize them for their method

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Not entirely sure about the US but in Australia, the government provides public libraries.
They buy books then allow you to borrow them for free.

With Google they just let someone else buy the books but they only provide small portions. Cost of access and ea

Re:Copyright Law

You might want to ask Google about their policy on how the scanned public domain works can be used. Part of their usual agreement with the libraries is that they will return to the library the digital version of the book -- but the library is not allowed to let anyone have mass or bulk access to the digital versions. Books that are public domain. Which Google has scanned, eg. has not made any transformative change, but wants to control access to. For those who's disbelieve this, go check it out the agreements for public schools (University of California) are available.

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Unfortunately, just scanning a work means that the scan itself has a copyright.

Similarly, you can't bring a camera into most museums because it is only by restricting photography that museums can control who has the ability to reproduce paintings they own

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Unfortunately, just scanning a work means that the scan itself has a copyright.

This is not the case in the UK, and the example of museums making posters for sale in the shop is a particular case where it has been ruled that there is no copyright in the re

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I don't know about that. IANAL but Bridgeman v. Corel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_v._Corel) was a US case where the court ruled "that exact photographic copies of public domain images could not be protected by copyright because the copies lack

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You most certainly can bring a camera into most museums, if you manage to sneak it past the guards. If you make a photograph anywhere, inside a museum or outside of it, that photograph is copyrighted by you, period. The museum has no rights to it whatsoever, regardless of its policies.

Just to clear things up - since there's a bit of contradiction between the things you said - any faithful representation of a two-dimensional object is exempt from being copyrighted in the US. If you use your camera in the museum to take an accurate photo

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I, for one, would like to see our new Google overlords challenged on its restrictions of public domain works.

As absurd as interpretations of copyright law have become, it is hard for me to believe that an automated machine scan of a public domain book, i

Off-topic: Big Eleven

Yes, we know - there are eleven schools in the Big Ten. The conference logo [wikipedia.org] even acknowledges it with an embedded "11" on either side of the "T". So please, no "OMG!!!!!!!11eleven" comments.

Re: Off-topic: Big Eleven

Come now. The fact that they acknowledge it diminishes the utter retardation of it not one iota.

Re:Off-topic: Big Eleven

These schools go to eleven.

My question is:

Do we REALLY want their books?

While under the safe shade of the off-topicness of the parent comment, let me say how disturbingly natural it has just recently become for me to add HTML tags.

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Of course it would be an athletic conference which allowed 11 schools into a group named for ten universities (Penn was not a member before 1990).

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What I don't get is how an athletic conference has any bearing whatsoever over academic matters (and I find that fact somewhat troubling). Ditto for the Ivy League.

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Conferences are a great way to group universities. You can typically accomplish more when you work as a group than if you work alone. The schools cooperate and compete in things other than athletics, you just don't see that stuff on ESPN.

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They must have counted with a C program: for (i=0; i=10; i++) printf("School #%d", i);

Google Books wouldn't be the one to do it...

...but isn't it about time that the concept of the public library was taken online? And I don't mean just public domain works, like Project Gutenberg [gutenberg.org] is doing (though of course, if the copyright term weren't so long, public domain only would be viable), but for-real honest-to-god reading books, promoting public literacy, online.

Re:Google Books wouldn't be the one to do it...

All of the libraries which are part of Clevnet, a large network of libraries in Ohio, do this already for books, music, and movies. Have a look here: http://dlc.clevnet.org/E5AA2452-2F88-4EA9-8F8F-F1E B267C0553/10/210/en/Default.htm [clevnet.org]

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A lot of libraries are making digital checkouts available... the larger ones my do it themselves, but smaller ones partner with places like netlibrary [netlibrary.com]/mymediamall [mymediamall.net]/tumblebooks [tumblebooks.com]/etc. They perhaps don't fulfill your entire vision, because they're heavily DRM

Consistent with copyright law

I find it funny that they are saying the material will be provided in a manner consistent with copyright law when the article also mentions there is a lawsuit pending regarding the appropriate use of copyrighted material.

I may think Google is using it in a legal manner. You may think it is a legal manner. Google may think it is a legal manner. The schools and libraries may think it is a legal manner. However, until the court rules in the pending copyright case, no one really knows what is legal.

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Sounds like a terribly flawed system to me if no one knows what is legal/illegal.

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I find it funny that they are saying the material will be provided in a manner consistent with copyright law when the article also mentions there is a lawsuit pending regarding the appropriate use of copyrighted material.

It's pretty simple, really: Google

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I find it funny that they are saying the material will be provided in a manner consistent with copyright law

I think the whole point of going to these large academic libraries is that they have books that are unquestionably in the public domain -- entire

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If they say that access is available in a manner consistent with copyright law, will they allow bulk digital download of stuff that is no longer under copyright and is under public domain?

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I find it funny that they are saying the material will be provided in a manner consistent with copyright law when the article also mentions there is a lawsuit pending regarding the appropriate use of copyrighted material.

Would it be fair to say that your post is consistent with decency laws in the US? Yet, I can still sue you for emotional damage I received when you used the word "material" after the word "funny" which I find to be obscene and evil. I can bring a lawsuit

Ohhhh boy it is Extinction Time(tm) !!!

You know, this could be the most ideal time in history to start a publishing company. If you assume (rightly) that most of the current publishing houses are going to restrict use of the scanned books to the point of uselessness thus minimizing the opportu

Re:Ohhhh boy it is Extinction Time(tm) !!!

I don't think that's good enough. For the betterment of humanity, everyone needs to have free access to every academic book ever written. I'm not saying that authors should not be paid, because hardly anyone would write books if they weren't paid, but that an alternative funding scheme needs to be found... and soon. Most academic books are funded by salaries paid from the public purse, so why not go that extra bit further? Anyone who has had to trudge around a research library or request books on interloan knows what a pain this is. Copyright as it is serves as an impediment to the furtherance of humankind. I'm not asking for Harry Potter to be provided free of charge, or the latest paperback porn, but I think it is reasonable to ask that all academic books have free access enabled.

There's no reason why, when I sit down at my computer, that I should not have the sum total of human knowledge at my disposal. Providing this would be a direct benefit to many and an indirect benefit to all, so there is a good case for public funding.

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People already have online access to 'the sum total of human knowledge,' provided you are able to pay for it (usually through your university or R&D company account). Those who need it (scientists, doctors, students, researchers, etc.), already have ac

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People already have online access to 'the sum total of human knowledge,' provided you are able to pay for it (usually through your university or R&D company account). Those who need it (scientists, doctors, students, researchers, etc.), already have access.

I understand where you're coming from, but your assertion is patently false. There are repositories of literature on certain subjects, but the truth is the vast majority of copyrighted works from the last 200 years, are no longer available for purchase o

Won't somebody think of the books?!

I'm appalled! Who does Google think they are, acquiring and retaining information on millions of books!? Frankly, I don't trust Google enough to properly keep this data private.

Boycott Google! They don't have any respect for literary privacy.

Is it up to the libraries?

I thought Google's biggest opponents were the publishers. Are the libraries really allowed to dictate what happens to the books they hold?
If that's the case, it really highlights a major difference in the attitudes regarding copyright on books VS music and

Brigham Young University?

BYU wasn't interested in participating? They have a super mega huge library..

--
wi-fizzle research [wi-fizzle.com]

what if...

What if Google issues their own digital library card, then will that be okay?

Major Schools only?

This implies that only "Major Schools" whatever the fsck that means have books worth putting online and/or the technology to do so.

I happen to disagree. Some of the PEW awards for Excellence in Technology went to schools not on that list, that have jus

Funny thing, Contracts-

A friend of mine was hired by a company that was doing this work for Google. When the schools pulled out, out went his job.

The camera system they had was great- using Canon 1Ds with a mirror, a page flipper, and no book was opened past 45 degrees (I believe- I'm doing this from memory).

Would have been a nice job....

Universities should get raw data too

I can't tell but it seems to me the universities ought to be able to receive the raw scan data (or cleaned up pre-OCR) for use by the university (or university group). The question then is whether they can show the digital copy to more than one person at a

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The question then is whether they can show the digital copy to more than one person at a time, and if they can still do so when the book is checked out. Many books say no reproduction for any use but it seems to me that libraries may require some additional legal protections so they can advance into the 20th century.

What a book says you can do, and what the law says you can do are different things. If I publish a book and the first page says "you cannot copy excerpts from this book in the states of California or Idaho" nothing legally stops people from doing so. As

Google Books "Full View" is a treasure

Regardless of the maybe-not-so-unimportant details, let me just say that Google Books, with "Full View" turned on, is a treasure. I haven't had so much fun since I graduated and moved and lost access to my university library.

There's just amazing stuff in there. Look at this peek at what Princeton University [google.com] was like in 1818. Before peeking, guess how many professors you think Princeton had in 1818.

How about Horseless Age, full of spiffy ads on all the hot automotive items of 1903?

How about The Boston Road Book, [google.com] which lists, describes, and rates all the best roads and routes for cyclists as of 1899?

Yes, I wish Google gave access to the OCR text (they must have OCRed it in order to index it) and I wish they were a little more forthcoming with respect to your rights to use this material (can Google really stop me from reusing material that's in the public domain? Does scanning a book constitute a transformative use or whatever?)

But don't let arguing over it stop you from enjoying this fabulous resource.

 

The link to "Horseless Age"

SIgh... must press preview... What I meant of course is that I used to have marvellous fun wasting time prowling around for things in the university library that weren't very relevant to whatever I was supposed to be doing.

And I meant to provide a link to

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Ah yes, that's what this reminded me of. I was thinking it was one of the stories in Analog, but you're right. This is from Vinge's latest book.

For those who don't read Vinge, one part of the story involves an impatient company using destructive scanning m

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It's very common to refer to "University of X" schools as just "X" when it's clear from the context. I agree that in the case of California, it's a little confusing since UCLA, Berkeley (which of course is a city, not a university ...), and UCSD are all m

Re:Universities like Harvard and California

California isn't a university. It is a state.

I suspect that you haven't lived in California for very long. "Cal" or "California" refers to UC Berkeley, the original UC. I agree with you somewhat, but millions have gotten used to calling it that. And it isn't the only state with multiple state run universities to adopt that terminology -- Missouri (or "Missou") is another example...

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In this case, "California" refers to the entire UC system: Google's arrangement gives it access to the full MELVYL catalog, which extends across all the UC campuses.

When referring to sports teams and such, however, "Cal" or "California" does denote the Ber

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University of Cincinnati is the "original" UC. Founded 49 years prior to Cal.