The death of Copyright? I don't know, but it's not looking too well, right now.

[lagilman]

Yeah, I'm not real thrilled about this, for various reasons including the "my work, my decision what gets done with it, not some random corporation."

If you wanted to draw the analogy with "my body my decision," you might not be too far off.



----------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by mb_galleycat at Google Wins 8-Year Book Scanning Battle

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/google-wins-8-year-book-scanning-battle_b80103

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/?p=80103

Google has won its controversial book scanning fight with the Author’s Guild. US Circuit Judge Denny Chin ruled in favor of Google on Thursday claiming that Google’s massive book scanning project, in which the online giant scanned millions of books and made them available through search without obtaining the permission of the copyright holders, to be legal.

According to Chin’s ruling, Google’s project makes life easier for research, makes it easier for libraries to obtain digital copies of books, brings old books to light and gives people who would not have access to books access. Here is an excerpt from the ruling

The sole issue now before the Court is whether Google’suse of the copyrighted works is “fair use” under the copyrightlaws. For the reasons set forth below, I conclude that it is.

We’ve embedded the entire document after the jump. continued…

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Comments

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

This isn't the kind of discussion it's good to have online, but I disagree about the consequences of this ruling. I think Judge Chin made the right call.

We'll see what happens when the Circuit gets a hold of it, of course.

[lagilman]

I've done all my arguments about this previously, from the point of view of the creator suddenly told they, effectively, have no control over their own work, and see nothing here that changes my opinion on that (or the danger of the precedent possibly being set).

Because something might have legal basis does not always make it the right or positive decision.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Well, that's just it, isn't it? The creator has never had total control over the work, and at least from my view this doesn't substantially change that balance.

[lagilman]

Actually, there has ALWAYS been control over what rights you sell, and how much can be excerpted (the "fair use" regs were clear on that, once upon a time). The ability to reprint material was controlled by the author and publisher, and you had to get written permissions.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Before 1978 "fair use" was entirely a judicial concept. The statute in the '76 Act simply codified that the judges have discretion and gave them a little bit of guidance, but continued to leave it up to the judge.

[lagilman]

But there were limits, and it was " for purposes of commentary and criticism," not to otherwise promote a third party's interests.

When you get into the "benefit the public interest" there's a definite grey area, but even so it has been SOP for decades that anything over X words is covered by first serial rights, not "I can put up any length excerpt of anything I want."

Google basically claimed the right to do whatever the fuck they liked with a large chunk of material, and insisted that anything they couldn't be arsed to look up qualified as an Orphan Work. That seriously undermined the entire idea of copyright.

[ so much for not rearguing my position, but since this actually matters to me as more than an interesting bit of legal wrangling....]

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

The "orphaned works" point was part of the proposed settlement, though, not this. The Guild was on board with that, and the judge ended up striking it down because of the public interest.

Here, the keys to the decision were the public good. Excerpts:

"Google's use of the copyrighted works is highly transformative. Google Books digitizes books and transforms expressive text into a comprehensive word index that helps readers, scholars, researchers, and others find books. Google Books has become an important tool for libraries and librarians and cite-checkers as it helps to identify and find books. The use of book text to facilitate search through the display of snippets is transformative."

"Similarly, Google Books is also transformative in the sense that it has transformed book text into data for purposes of substantive research, including data mining and text mining in new areas, thereby opening up new fields of research. Words in books are being used in a way they have not been used before. Google Books has created something new in the use of book text -- the frequency of words and trends in their usage provide substantive information."

"a reasonable factfinder could only find that Google Books enhances the sales of books to the benefit of copyright holders. An important factor in the success of an individual title is whether it is discovered -- whether potential readers learn of its existence. Google Books provides a way for authors' works to become noticed, much like traditional in-store book displays."

(And so much for me saying I don't want to try to argue this online...but then, this matters to me too, after all.)

[lagilman]

Yes, I read the argument (not being, y'know, ignorant of the issue or not having been following this for the past eight years)

I disagree with it.

(I am not a lawyer and you can therefore dismiss my concerns all you wish. But they are my concerns and they are valid ones, as evidenced by the fact that this case took eight years to come to a decision)

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

I suspect that you already know that I stand with you on this issue. What I wonder is, can the Author's Guild appeal this case to the Supreme Court? Or is this decision the final word on the matter? (I genuinely don't know what the law dictates or allows with regard to a U.S. circuit court decision; it's a question asked out of ignorance, nothing else.)

ETA: And if they can, do you think they will?

[lagilman]

I believe that they've already appealed.

I've long said that I didn't expect this to be a case we could win - that our best hope was to drag it out for so long, the tech and business caught up and Google wasn't our only option. So far, that seems to be what's happening

[elsceetaria.livejournal.com]

I have used Google Books for research before. It's usually to find a specific quote or something that I need a page number for, but there were other times when I needed to read an article in a book I had the wrong edition of. I always could have given more time gotten the books from the library.

I have also done freelance research where I was finding sources for others. In these situations, I probably would have just used the books from Google books if they had been helpful (this never came up though), and in those situations, I would have been using the copyright holders materials for profit without permission.

It isn't fair to the copyright holders in those situations, and the part of me that might one day publish sees that. I'm not a lawyer, but given my understanding and experiences I can see both sides of the argument. It will be interesting to see how this case continues.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

I'm really pretty infuriated by this decision.

Lo these many years ago, my partner & I published a benefit anthology called Ravens in the Library. The only permissions we asked for from the authors and artists involved were print permissions, and they were strictly limited--as soon as SJ Tucker's medical bills were paid off, the book would go out of print.

Which is exactly what we did.

And then it was revealed that the Google Book project involved scanning All The Things, not just books that were out of copyright. We looked it up, and yup, sure enough--they had listed our book as being part of their collection, although it was as of yet unscanned.

Needless to say, they had not made even the slightest attempt to contact us for permission. In fact, they made it clear that as far as they were concerned, ALL works were orphans, and they HAD permission unless someone made the effort to tell them No, and then that No would not be comprehensive--each printing, each edition, had to have its own individual No, and the process to tell them No was time-intensive. One author I know literally spent several days on it.

And then they announced their plans to sell electronic copies of the books they scanned, which, as far as I can tell, everyone seems to have forgotten about, including Judge Chin.

Not. Happy. At. All.