stevenpiziks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stevenpiziks) wrote2009-05-01 09:35 am
stevenpiziks) wrote2009-05-01 09:35 am
Entry tags:
Probably Unpopular View of Copyright
Who cares if the book can't be read?
I'm not joking.
The publishing industry--publishers, authors, agents, Google, various author/editor/agent guilds--are alternately praising or howling about the Google settlement. But no one is looking at a serious flaw in the underlying premise: "Oh. My. God! There are books that are unavailable to the public because we can't find the copyright owner to ask permission to republish them. That's, like, so awful!"
No, it isn't.
=Why= do we have to make all books available to all people? Since when has that ever been essential to human existence? Or even vaguely desirable to it? What intrinsic value does this concept contain?
Books are property. They belong to the authors who created them. If the original author or the heirs can't be located, why is it so damned necessary that the book automatically be made available?
Google seems to operate on the assumption that all written material is or should be available for free, since they want to make everything available on-line. The settlement with the Author's Guild indicates that the AG and the court apparently mostly agrees with them, since the settlement hands Google rights to e-publish just about all books UNLESS the author opts out. In other words, they get the rights for basically nothing unless the owner alerts them otherwise, and even then Google has some power over the property.
Again, I ask WHY?
If Great-Aunt Penelope wrote a book of ghost stories in 1935, and no one can find her heirs, why MUST the book be scanned and put on Google? If Marvin Wexford, PhD, wrote a history of wolfhound breeding in Ireland, then moved to Dublin and no can get hold of him, why does his book HAVE to go into Google's database? What is the pressing, all-powerful need for this? Are thousands of people suddenly going to become enthralled by Penelope's ghosts? Or by Marvin's dogs? Doesn't seem likely, or even possible. So why the drive?
Sure, it can help a few scholars with their research. Um . . . I think that's it. It certainly doesn't justify trespassing on copyrights and copyright law. Books have been passing into obscurity for a very long time. It's the nature of literature and writing.
I'm not joking.
The publishing industry--publishers, authors, agents, Google, various author/editor/agent guilds--are alternately praising or howling about the Google settlement. But no one is looking at a serious flaw in the underlying premise: "Oh. My. God! There are books that are unavailable to the public because we can't find the copyright owner to ask permission to republish them. That's, like, so awful!"
No, it isn't.
=Why= do we have to make all books available to all people? Since when has that ever been essential to human existence? Or even vaguely desirable to it? What intrinsic value does this concept contain?
Books are property. They belong to the authors who created them. If the original author or the heirs can't be located, why is it so damned necessary that the book automatically be made available?
Google seems to operate on the assumption that all written material is or should be available for free, since they want to make everything available on-line. The settlement with the Author's Guild indicates that the AG and the court apparently mostly agrees with them, since the settlement hands Google rights to e-publish just about all books UNLESS the author opts out. In other words, they get the rights for basically nothing unless the owner alerts them otherwise, and even then Google has some power over the property.
Again, I ask WHY?
If Great-Aunt Penelope wrote a book of ghost stories in 1935, and no one can find her heirs, why MUST the book be scanned and put on Google? If Marvin Wexford, PhD, wrote a history of wolfhound breeding in Ireland, then moved to Dublin and no can get hold of him, why does his book HAVE to go into Google's database? What is the pressing, all-powerful need for this? Are thousands of people suddenly going to become enthralled by Penelope's ghosts? Or by Marvin's dogs? Doesn't seem likely, or even possible. So why the drive?
Sure, it can help a few scholars with their research. Um . . . I think that's it. It certainly doesn't justify trespassing on copyrights and copyright law. Books have been passing into obscurity for a very long time. It's the nature of literature and writing.