Re: Google Book Search and fair use

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

Adam,

Fair use is not the only way to get where you want to go. 
Publishers could grant licenses in advance that assert how 
material can be used.  (They should do this.)  So, for example, a 
hardcopy novel could come with a license that allows a user to 
make a digital copy; allows the user to share the copy with a 
certain number of people; sets a price on usage beyond a certain 
level (and includes a link for a transaction site, Visa and 
PayPal accepted); permits users to come up with new fictions 
based on the characters in the novel (good promotion) provided 
that their length is below a specified limit; etc.  The specific 
terms of the license are not what is important here.  What is 
important is that right now no one knows what they can do 
legitimately, so some people do nothing and others agitate for 
broader change.  I just don't see why anyone thinks it is helpful 
to keep people guessing about copyright status.

Let's add that the music industry has done this right with the 
mandatory licenses for air play.  If you operate a radio station, 
you don't have to call up the Beatles' lawyer everytime you want 
to play "Paperback Writer." The royalty has been agreed to in 
advance.  This is highly efficient.  Is the system perfect?  Of 
course not.  But a system that works for most of the people most 
of the time is good enough for me.  I say, Let's move onto the 
next problem.

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "Adam Hodgkin" <adam.hodgkin@gmail.com>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: Google Book Search and fair use

> Christine -- I dont think you are disagreeing with me, so that 
> shows that my expression was not quite right.
>
> Expanding the scope of 'fair use' can be helpful to publishers 
> as well as to the community at large. Unfortunately, many 
> publishing spokespeople do not see this. They are worried that 
> fair use is a legal loop-hole through which the coach and 
> horses will be driven.
>
> The problem is how to move away from a situation in which 
> publishers blanket prohibit all \secondary' use of texts 
> through digitisation. This ban will become increasingly 
> impossible to defend, (and is way too blanket), without, on the 
> other hand, falling into a situation where 'anything goes' and 
> authors/publishers are being ripped off.
>
> A part of the answer has to lie between the distinction between 
> uses for education, study and research on the one hand, and 
> re-uses for commercial gain on the other hand. This is already 
> part of our concept of 'fair use'. Its also where the Google 
> Book Search case gets convoluted.
>
> This is also a partial answer to Sandy Thatcher's request for 
> more clarity on my "acceptable database interpretations of 
> texts." I dont have a clearly worked out Rubric which most 
> academic publishers should use to protect and proliferate their 
> texts in acceptable form; but I suspect that the best solution 
> for them and for the authors they represent would be a rubric 
> which encourages the generative (Zittrain's phrase) use of 
> databased versions of texts, provided that the computational 
> use of the text does not undermine the market for those texts 
> in human readable form. And it is at that point that the 'opt 
> out' rights can be exercised. The rubric should provide that 
> the publisher/author can step in and say, "You have just 
> gobbled up my text and regurgitated it in ways which add no 
> value and merely 'capture' and redistribute all its content for 
> my audience. Please desist." Publishers who were too aggressive 
> with their 'take down' notices would find themselves less 
> popular with their readers and their authors.
>
> I am not sure that this would be the right approach, perhaps 
> someone can suggest a more explicitly 'generative' rubric, but 
> a more permissive and open approach will surely be in the 
> interests of publishers and creators.
>
> Adam Hodgkin
>
>
> On 16 Jul 2008, at 01:43, Pikas, Christina K. wrote:
>
>> I can't disagree with this statement more:  "That means 
>> creating a copyright environment in which consumer, college 
>> students and researchers don't even think about 'rolling their 
>> own'."
>>
>> To adequately meet the needs of our users, we need to combine, 
>> remix, and mash-up the motley pile of interfaces and 
>> information resources. What we need for publishers, content 
>> owners, and content distributors to do is: - to work on ways 
>> to show provenance when information is extracted and presented 
>> in a new package - use standards - provide hooks, apis, and 
>> machine readable interfaces - be more flexible in licensing so 
>> that the content can be fully exploited (while still being 
>> appropriately paid for)
>>
>> (maybe I'm not disagreeing with Adam upon re-reading his 
>> e-mail)
>>
>> Our users *have* to roll their own because we are obviously 
>> not doing enough for them.  When you have scientists spending 
>> time trying to hack your resource instead of doing new science 
>> or librarians programming AROUND errors in your system instead 
>> of doing new and interesting things... Then it's your problem 
>> and it's ours.
>>
>> (my personal opinion and not that of my place of work)
>>
>> Christina K. Pikas, MLS
>> R.E. Gibson Library & Information Center
>> The Johns  Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> [mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Adam Hodgkin
>> Sent: Monday, July 14, 2008 10:01 PM
>> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
>> Subject: Re: Google Book Search and fair use
>>
>> Tackling pirates once they have emerged is one thing. Creating a
>> climate in which pirates are a marginal issue is a better
>> solution.
>>
>> That means creating a copyright environment in which consumer,
>> college students and researchers dont even think about 'rolling
>> their own'.
>>
>> I would have some suggestions:
>>
>> (1) Do not follow the path of the music publishers, who buried
>> their heads in the sand and opposed or ignored every new use,
>> every new technical development.
>>
>> (2) Devise a much better rubric, and devise an equivalent of
>> robots.txt which allows and encourages acceptable database
>> interpretations of texts.
>>
>> (3) Reguire database implementations to use and register their
>> use of publisher supplied PDFs. Google should not be creating
>> their own inferior PDFs of books published in the last 12 years
>> because publishers should have been archiving these PDFs
>>
>> (4) Encourage and define a broader understanding of 'fair use'
>> (ie 'embrace and extend the valuable concept of fair use rather
>> than fight it all the way')
>>
>> That is enough by way of suggestions to keep several working
>> parties busy for years, but the key change is one of 'attitude'
>> in which publishers must recognise that creating, supplying and
>> licensing the use of digital texts is the core part of their
>> mission in 21st C. Not something to be pushed away and ignored
>> for as long as possible.
>>
>> Adam