WORTH READING google books

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: pam () ischool berkeley edu
Date: May 23, 2009 2:40:46 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: google books

This responds to Mike Anderson and Thomas Lord.

I agree with Mike Anderson that it is good for public access to  
knowledge
(which is the constitutional purpose for having copyright law in the  
first
place) for Google to make orphan books available to the public.  Many of
these books are out of print, but the insight that Google had was that  
the
books might still be quite valuable to scholars especially even if the
market for print versions was perceived to be too small to justify their
republication.  Digital copies are cheaper and with the improved search
technologies, it is now easier for people looking for seemingly obscure
books to find them.

Where I diverge from Mike's perspective is in his assertion that it is
fine for Google to be the only entity legally entitled to make orphan
books available.  It would be much better for other entities, such as  
the
Internet Archive and the Open Content Alliance, to be able to scan and
make available these same books and to offer better access terms than
Google will be likely to do in the absence of competition.  The right
answer to the orphan works problem is not for Google to have a  
monopoly on
them, but for Congress to pass orphan works legislation or for the
Antitrust Division to give Google a nudge to license the orphan books to
others after the Book Search  settlement confers on it a license to  
these
books.  That would create competition that will avoid the perils of
monopoly.

As for Thomas's concern about libraries and the privileges that  
copyright
law affords them to copy for preservation and similar purposes, it is  
fair
to observe that the copyright laws we have were drafted before the
development of computing technologies and environments that are  
pervasive
parts of our experience today.  I commend Google and the Internet  
Archive
for taking initiative to scan books from major research libraries which
the libraries themselves were too afraid to digitize.

Of course authors and publishers should have the right not to have their
books in the Book Search corpus or to profit from reuses of their books
that remain in the corpus, but the Book Search settlement will result in
monies collected from orphan works being shared with authors and
publishers registered with the Book Rights Registry for  books they did
not write or publish and in which they own no copyrights.

Pam Samuuelson
UC Berkeley School of Law and of Information





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