Google Subpoenas Microsoft & Yahoo 164
eldavojohn writes "Mercury News is running a story reporting that Google has filed subpoenas with Microsoft and Yahoo, in relation to their legal battles with publishers and authors. Google faces charges of massive copyright infringement surrounding its online book project. The company claims that Microsoft and Yahoo have taken the exact same steps in acquiring print-related rights. Google therefore wants to show that 'everyone is doing it.'" From the article: "McGraw-Hill Cos. and the Authors Guild, along with other publishers and authors, contend that a Google project to digitize the libraries of four major U.S. universities, as well as portions of the New York Public Library and Oxford University's libraries, ignores the rights of copyright holders in favor of Google's economic self-interest ... Is the library of the future going to be open? Or will it be controlled by a couple of big corporate players?"
Que: Your parents. (Score:2, Insightful)
Well I guess that makes it OK. If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you?
Amazing! (Score:4, Insightful)
If my buddy and I violate someone's copyright, and the copyright holder sues me and not him, guess what? That's his or her decision. Their copyright does not somehow become "less valid" because of whom they take legal action against, or do not take such action against.
Now, for _trademarks_, it's a different story. But, clearly, scanning in entire books has far more to do with copyrights than trademarks, at least in this case.
Re:Que: Your parents. (Score:5, Insightful)
Common practice can become a part of law through judicial rulings, and in this case there is arguably a good reason for this database (seeing as how a database suh as this does not exist in the public realm, nor is there any real impetus to create one). Google would like the law to be interpreted for its intent, not necessarily the letter, and the believe they might have some footing.
Really, it's a non-issue, except there's gazillions of dollars of corporations involved, and those gazillions of dollars are usually fighting with one another.
Re:Que: Your parents. (Score:4, Insightful)
Buy old media to shut it up (Score:5, Insightful)
The optical fiber cos bought the phone cos.
The dot.coms bought the networks.
Rockefeller bought his competitors.
Re:Que: Your parents. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, actually there is a another legal angle that makes the "everybody else is doing it to" argument useful. If they can show something like selective enforcement (I don't know what the civil equivalent of this is, but I'm pretty sure that their is one) Then the suit would either need to be dropped or expanded to include MS, Yahoo and all the rest.
This would be to google's advantage because of the additional legal and political weight that the other players could bring to bear, and because it would make their opposition's case seem that much more absurd.
Culture should be free (Score:5, Insightful)
No. The public has also the right to digitized, freely accesible publications. And since these books are already freely available in public libraries, why shouldn't they be on the Internet?
Library of Congress (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd rather see the Library of Congress do something like this instead of having it controlled by the publishers or Google or Yahoo or Microsoft. One would be very foolish to have anyone entity control this, and I'd rather it be free to all and not plastered by Adsense everywhere.
Which corporations would those be? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, this experiment with copyright is getting out of control. It's difficult for modern works to achieve classic status. Just last week I was reading that many anthology creators pick and choose their contents based more and more on what rights they can afford. Some modern authors might make a splash, but they're pricing their work out of range for posterity.
You could say that the market will sort this out -- but it's a tragedy what happens in the mean time. Good works will moulder and die as publishers and author's families try to pimp them for the final dollar. All I can think is, doesn't it make more sense to SHORTEN copyright periods as technology improves rather than to extend them? A book can be published, shipped, promoted, bought, and read the world over in a few years now rather than a decade.
Re:Que: Your parents. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nice try, Google. (Score:2, Insightful)
Taking a couple pounds of cheese off the store shelf is illegal. Taking a couple of the sample cubes is not.
KFG
Re:Que: Your parents. (Score:2, Insightful)
The example I know of happens in the United States. It goes like this: A man owns a piece of land including a private beach. He does not fence, sign or otherwise make public the fact that it is private. His neighbours use the beach to bathe and launch boats off of regularly for several years. The man one day fences off the lot. The neighbours sue. The case is ruled in their favor because he had not, in all those years, defended his property
IANAL, and have no idea what laws this relates to (I suspect this is related to the fact that only the neighbours seen to have incurred an "actual loss", which seems critical in the U.S. legal system).
The point is well made by my parent- by not suing the others, they are showing an ambivalence towards their property rights. I have a reservation to this argument, since they are in fact engaging in the protection of their property (against Google). It could be suggested that winning against Google provides them with a juicy precedent, with which they could cost-effectively sue the remaining websites (as opposed to suing them all at once). If I were one of our overworked judges, I'd appreciate them holding off.
Re:Culture should be free (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll accept your argument, as long as you get Google to agree that should any digitized copy of a work in their system leak so that more than small excerpts are available on-line, Google will immediately
...not Google's problem. The very same argument was proposed when Xerox machines came into use. The maker of a tool is not responsible for misuse of that tool. Sorry, but Google already goes well beyond their required duties in this regard.
On the other hand, should you be able to prove that Google Books is negatively effecting the market for these books because they are leaking, then Google may well lose the right to republish excerpts in this way, under the fair use doctrine.
The law actually addresses this, but only in terms of the market for these works. If you can prove the market is negatively affected by Google's use, it speaks to the validity of their fair use. Of course since none of the copyright holders can demonstrate any such thing they haven't even bothered making this argument in court, as far as I know.
Necessarily (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course.
Because if I didn't, "everyone" wouldn't have jumped off the cliff - violating the premise.
Re:Necessarily (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dawn of the Information Age (Score:3, Insightful)
At this point? Nothing.
Are you saying you're unaware of the massive problems caused by our current copyright system, including the massive destruction of works and the government enforced prevention of old works from being revived?
Copyright gives an artist a right to determine how (and if) his/her work will be distributed. Calling up a flat fee and telling an artist that they do not have rights to the distribution of their work is nonsense. And ultimately who's to decide who gets what fee for what work?
With this I agree. A flat rate removes all the advantages of capitalism. It is unworkable in the long term.
It seems that one of your problems is that government currently has say in copyright and that eliminating current copyright gets rid of so many issues surrounding it... but who controls the end product?
Ummm, copyright is an artificial government granted right, not a natural right. It is the government restricting free speech for the greater good. The government not being involved would mean there is no copyright. I don't think most people want it abolished, just severely reformed to benefit the people.
Not all media can be judged by those "high up" without infringing on the artists rights in some way.
Sadly, right now much of the availability of copyrighted works is determined by those "high up" in corporate distribution houses. Media executives are notoriously terrible at determining what should and should not be available to the public. They tend to minimize risk, which means shutting down anything abnormal. But almost all great works are abnormal. Most are not recognized as great for some time. With current copyright, that usually means never. Heck look at the top 10 TV shows of all time. How many were cancelled after their first season, or only saved by some weird chance?
With current copyright law, that pretty much means those works vanish from both the market and the public consciousness, and never get another shot. One of the two major reasons for copyright was so that works wouldn't be kept secret and would eventually become available to the general public. Now, copyright never expires and the last copy of works often vanish without it ever being available to the general public. My favorite example for shorter copyright durations is "It's a wonderful life." It's a classic, right? It was a box office flop and was tossed in a warehouse after the initial showings. If copyright then was as it is today, no one would have ever heard of this film. But no, the copyright expired, and PBS aired it. It became an instant classic and part of our culture (and somehow became re-copyrighted through legal shenanigans). For the last 30 years, nothing has come out of copyright and all indications are nothing may ever do so again. That means they will probably never get a chance to be recognized as a classic or great work. Why? What is the benefit of this to society? Why are we giving up our free speech for this?
Copyright durations should, if anything, be shorter than they originally were, not longer. For the vast majority of works, most of the money is made in the first few years. So make copyrights last only a few years and creators will have only slightly less incentive to create them, but society will benefit from having all of them available. Classics will no longer vanish and we will have a real, evolving artistic heritage again, instead of this stagnating run of remakes we have now.
Re:You are mistaken... (Score:4, Insightful)
In the short term, you are correct; but lawmakers consider both the short- and long-term.
Ha ha ha ha ha! Whew! That's a good one. You did not notice the perpetual copyright we now endure, and the ongoing disintegration of works created over the last 30 years? Lawmakers consider lobbying dollars and have happily sold out our future so certain companies can make tiny percentage more money with less competition.
In the long-term, copyright provides an incentive for people to create new things, and that benefits everyone in society.
Interestingly, even the US supreme court disagrees with you and states that in their opinion the current copyright laws are obviously not benefitting society. Only through a technicality of the wording have they not been struck down (Congress claims they are merely incompetent not being malicious and the supreme court does not have the authority to judge that they are lying).
Arguably, without copyright we would have many fewer interesting works as part of our culture.
Arguably with copyright we would have a lot more interesting works as part our culture. Have you heard the story of the movie "It's a Wonderful Life?" Sit down and take a load off and I'll spin you a tale. It was crap. It was a huge box office flop. It was tossed in a warehouse and left to rot. It was thoroughly unprofitable. There it sat until the copyright expired, many years later. PBS, strapped for cash, aired it near the holidays and it became a classic overnight. Like most great works, it was not immediately recognized as such. Under our current laws, that would never happen. No one would have ever heard of the movie because no one would have though it might make money for them.
No work has entered the public domain in 30 years and it seems unlikely that many ever will. In 130 years or so they'll probably extend copyrights again and if they don't most works will have been lost entirely or DRM will prevent them from playing. Under our current system the criteria for being available to the public is some executive's guess about profitability and that usually means anything unusual is out. Almost every one of the most popular TV shows of all time was either cancelled in its first season or saved by some weird chance.
So you're sitting here and telling me you really think the fact that 99% of the works for the last 30 years being unavailable to the public benefits society? I'm sorry, but you're nuts. Motivation is great and all but a 2 year copyright will work fine as motivation as 99% of works make most of their money in the first 2 years. And money is not even the biggest motivator for most artists. And finally, there are plenty of ways to make money without copyright, especially in this day and age of technology. Half the money made by Disney, or more comes from trademarks, not copyright. Do you really think if copyright went away entirely or was limited to 2 years, they'd just close up shop and go home, leaving those billions for someone else? Not a chance.
The damage to society our current laws are doing is more severe than the benefits it is bringing. We need to fix it. If we can't fix it, abolishing it entirely is better than what we have now. I say this as someone who makes most of my living writing and selling copyrighted works.
Digital Public Library ended in 1920's. (Score:1, Insightful)
But, there is still a demand for public access to information, so government libraries license back limited access to the information monpolies that it created.
But, with in the current state, digital information is only available as DRM data, which is far from public access.
Luckily, The internet and Open Source stepped in where the public domain stopped. There is open source software, some open source books and large self creating open source works like Wikipedia.
If one was to create a true public digital library, it would have only: public domain works which stopped in the 1920's and open source works.