[Web4lib] More on Google's digitization efforts

[Walt.Crawford at rlg.org]

Lars notes, re a Chicago Tribune article on Google Print...

One lawyer says in the article that you need copyright permission
> to offer searches.  Perhaps then you also need copyright
> permission to offer loans, catalog records, and what not?
>
> As far as I know, I can compile an alphabetic index to someone
> else's book and publish it without asking permission from the
> copyright holders.  In fact, I already did that,
> http://aronsson.se/funkybusiness.html
>
> How is my finding tool any different from Google Print?

Lars probably knows the answer already: He didn't go out and scan entire
books and serials that he did not purchase or own, keeping the scanned
copies, as part of compiling that index.

Cataloging and abstracting/indexing constitute (as far as I can see)
intellectual effort resulting in new (copyrightable) entities. You don't
need a restaurant's permission to write a review of its food; you don't
need a hotel owner's permission to write an architectural critique on the
building; you don't need a book publisher's permission to write a review or
catalog record or index to the book.

The copyright issue with Google Print is the wholesale copying of complete
in-copyright books.

Maybe they can make a fair-use claim (although, as a for-profit company
likely to gain commercial benefit through that copying and not owning the
books being copied, it would be an interesting case at least). But the
copying makes it different from abstracting/indexing and cataloging.

Loans in the U.S. are covered by the First Sale doctrine. Some authors and
publishers would love to get rid of that doctrine (although most who've
thought about it may be more sensible). In the UK and some other countries,
libraries pay (indirectly) a fee for every circulation, so there is
precedent under different copyright regimes.

-walt crawford-
web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org wrote on 09/04/2005 02:12:12 AM:

> Bernie Sloan quoted a Chicago Tribune article:
>
> > "To many copyright holders, though, the Google gambit feels a little
> > like a burglar announcing to homeowners that he is going to go ahead
and
> > pillage their houses unless they specifically ask him not to."
>
> If this analogy would be valid, where would that put libraries?
> One lawyer says in the article that you need copyright permission
> to offer searches.  Perhaps then you also need copyright
> permission to offer loans, catalog records, and what not?
>
> As far as I know, I can compile an alphabetic index to someone
> else's book and publish it without asking permission from the
> copyright holders.  In fact, I already did that,
> http://aronsson.se/funkybusiness.html
>
> How is my finding tool any different from Google Print?
>
>
> --
>   Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
>   Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
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