Google’s Folio Portfolio
Google’s attempt to index print books has come under fire from publishers. How foolish.
Saturday, October 15th, 2005
As this issue of Linux Magazine goes to press, the brouhaha of the day is Google’s plan to convert a vast number of books to electronic form.
In one corner sits Google. Its ambitious plan would reduce the equivalent of a good-sized public library’s mysterious and voluminous card catalog and content to a few keystrokes.
In the opposing corner sits book publishers. Many publishers oppose Google’s plan because unauthorized reproduction is a clear violation of copyright. Google says publishers can” opt out” to omit a book. Publishers cry foul: it’s presumptuous of Google to invert such a fundamental privilege of copyright.
According to the letter of the law, the publishers are correct. Google may not reproduce a book in any way, shape, or form without the express permission of the copyright holder. After all, copyright literally began as” copy right” — the exclusive right to reproduce a particular work on a specific printing press and profit from the endeavor. Even in the modern world of MP3s, JPEGs, and PDFs, the same tenet applies: copying and exploiting a work is the sole right of the creator (author, painter, developer, and so on).
But that’s the rub: assuming that Google moves ahead with its plan (at the moment, the company has suspended scanning to take time to salve the worries of publishers) is Google making a commercial copy? Or put another way, is Google’s effort to digitize and index a book tantamount to piracy?
