Author's Guild Suit, and Google's Response: My Thoughts

The net is buzzing with the news that the Author’s Guild has sued Google over its Google Library project. As you know if you read my previous post on the subject, I’m with Google.

 

I found the following publisher quote in a Technology Review article to be particularly to the point:

Publishers shouldn’t have to bear the burden of record-keeping, agreed Sanfilippo, the Penn State press’s marketing and sales director.
“”We’re not aware of everything we’ve published,” Sanfilippo said. “Back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, there were no electronic files for those books.”

That’s precisely why Google’s opt-out position is exactly the right one. If we were to wait for publishers to opt in, only current, in print works would get into the index. With opt out, the interests of the public, the authors, and the publishers are all protected. The public gets an amazing utility, the ability to find which books contain the desired information as easily as they can now find web content; readers, authors and publishers all get a windfall as search helps people find books that are currently completely ignored by both publishers and retailers. And if some forgotten gem gets discovered, and the copyright holder isn’t convinced that Google Print’s revelation of the book is enough reason to keep it in the index, and they want to monetize it in some other way, they can opt out! What more can you ask for?

 

I do think that a lot of the resistance from publishers has to do with the fear of ultimately being disintermediated by Google. And it’s a legitimate fear. The publishers who don’t embrace the net will be swept away by it, while those who do will surf the wave to new excitement. Print-bound intermediaries will go away, but they will be replaced by new delivery-mechanism-agnostic intermediaries and business models. The role of the intermediary will remain because it’s driven by the law of large numbers. (See my essay, Piracy is Progressive Taxation.) The resistance from authors, on the other hand, can only come from ignorance about the nature of the program. Every author should be sure to read Google’s response to the suit

Fred von Lohman of EFF summarizes the legal issues and points to a legal paper on the subject. Seems to me that not only common sense, but the law, is likely on Google’s side.