Re: Google Book Search and fair use

[Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu>]

Ok, point well taken, but what is your solution? Pirates, 
especially those offshore, are not likely to respond to any "opt 
out" requests either, and already there is plenty of such book 
piracy going on. Just ask the AAP task force that has been 
monitoring this. Or read the IIPA Special 301 report on IP 
enforcement in China. I suppose for us university presses there 
is some consolation in the fact that the monographs we publish 
are of interest to so few people worldwide that pirates don't 
bother to waste their time on them, but concentrate on commercial 
best sellers and textbooks instead.


>Sandy, my point hinges on a distinction between digital copies 
>ofa printed page and digital copies of a text. What is 
>significantabout the Google process is that they are making 
>copies of thetext, as well as copies of the page (they give the 
>copy of thepage back to the library, but they keep for 
>themselves the muchmore valuable 'interpreted' digital copy of 
>the text). There arelots of ways of producing useful digital 
>copies of a text, butmost of the efficient ones use an 
>electronic file as the source(or something similar). This 
>copying can be managed by thepublisher or the rights holder (and 
>publishers are rightly quiteconcerned over the distribution of 
>the PDF file).  Google for thelibrary project has not gone to 
>publishers for 'source files fromthe text' they have generated 
>their own digital copies(interpretations -- and with mistakes) 
>of original texts. TheGoogle process requires a lot of 
>investment and a big softwaresystem. But disseminated low-cost 
>ways of digitizing texts arecoming.
>
>What happened to music about 30 years ago, and is now starting
>tohappen with books, is that it is quite feasible to produce
>usefulcopies from the physical product. You dont need the source
>file.I predict that there will soon be lots of ways of
>producing(image scan->OCR->text database) usable digital copies of
>anyprinted text. The chances are someone is working on how to dothis
>with an iPhone right now. Point the iPhone at your book,flip the
>pages, and *hey presto* you have your enhanced textdatabase,
>accessible from and fed by your iPhone.
>
>CDs still have the rubric (similar to that which you find onbooks)
>that "Unauthorised copying, duplication, hiring,broadcasting ... etc
>is prohibited." But nobody (including allthe book publishers of my
>acquaintance) ever seeks authorisationbefore copying for their iPod,
>their home music centre, or beforesundry other things that may or
>may not be authorised by themusic publishers. Because copying the
>physical copy is so easy(and so useful) music companies have had to
>abandon the fictionof opt in permissions for copying music. They
>still print therubric on the sleeve of the CD, but I bet they dont
>get manyrequests for digital copies from end-users.
>
>If book publishers judge that maintaining the fiction of an 'optin'
>permissions system will work when it is so easy and so usefulto make
>databases of books from physical volumes, they have arude shock
>coming.
>
>Adam
>
>