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Google Subpoenas Microsoft & Yahoo
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Oct 06, 2006 12:04 PM
from the getting-the-gang-together dept.
from the getting-the-gang-together dept.
eldavojohn writes "Mercury News is running a story reporting that Google has filed subpoenas with Microsoft and Yahoo, in relation to their legal battles with publishers and authors. Google faces charges of massive copyright infringement surrounding its online book project. The company claims that Microsoft and Yahoo have taken the exact same steps in acquiring print-related rights. Google therefore wants to show that 'everyone is doing it.'" From the article: "McGraw-Hill Cos. and the Authors Guild, along with other publishers and authors, contend that a Google project to digitize the libraries of four major U.S. universities, as well as portions of the New York Public Library and Oxford University's libraries, ignores the rights of copyright holders in favor of Google's economic self-interest ... Is the library of the future going to be open? Or will it be controlled by a couple of big corporate players?"
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Google Responds to Authors Guild Lawsuit 383 comments
Phoe6 writes "Google has responded to the Authors' Guild lawsuit of "massive copyright infringement". They point out that the Library Project is 'fully consistent with both the fair use doctrine under U.S. copyright law and the principles underlying copyright law itself, which allow everything from parodies to excerpts in book reviews.'"
[+]
Publishers Thank Google for Book Sales 257 comments
eldavojohn writes "A few book publishers are actually thanking Google for an apparent rise in sales due to Google's scan plan. Google is busy defending itself against authors and publishers that have brought lawsuits for ignoring copyrights. The director of the Oxford University Press said, 'Google Book Search has helped us turn searchers into consumers.' It seems to work in favor of the smaller publishers: 'Walter de Gruyter/Mouton-De Gruyter, a German publisher, said its encyclopedia of fairy tales has been viewed 471 times since appearing in the program, with 44 percent of them clicking on the 'buy this book' Google link.' Do you think that Google's 'sneak peak' search access increases sales or violates copyrights on intellectual property?"
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man what a pain (Score:2, Funny)
Que: Your parents. (Score:2, Insightful)
Well I guess that makes it OK. If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you?
Re:Que: Your parents. (Score:5, Funny)
Only if google told me to
Parent
Re:Que: Your parents. (Score:5, Insightful)
Common practice can become a part of law through judicial rulings, and in this case there is arguably a good reason for this database (seeing as how a database suh as this does not exist in the public realm, nor is there any real impetus to create one). Google would like the law to be interpreted for its intent, not necessarily the letter, and the believe they might have some footing.
Really, it's a non-issue, except there's gazillions of dollars of corporations involved, and those gazillions of dollars are usually fighting with one another.
Parent
Re:Que: Your parents. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Que: Your parents. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
1) is tenuous, but you could say that people who really care about the music will buy a legal copy instead of downloading it from some random server, which is likely to have a poorly-digitized version of it.
2) For every song I share, you can already find it on the Internet. If it takes you a couple more seconds of searching, that's irrelevant to the case.
3) Some studies have shown that people are more likely to buy an entire CD or whatever after listening to the song online. The a
Re:Que: Your parents. (Score:4, Interesting)
So, if they get a pass with 'everyone else is doing it', do I get the same if I want do download some songs or MP3s? Can I just tell the **AA that 'everyone else is doing it', and that everyone is a lot higher number than the folks google is talking about.
Well, there is a lot wrong with your post. First, to my knowledge no one in the US has yet been sued for downloading songs, only uploading. Somehow, however, the MPAA has managed to get the term "downloading" into the public consciousness. I always look at these articles that say "downloading" and every time they then mention uploading in the actual case.
Next, "everyone doing something" speaks to part of one of the four fair use criteria for legal copying and republishing of works without a copyright holder's permission (effect upon the market). If you meet all these criteria (as Google seems to) then by all means you can tell the RIAA to shove it, although you may have to go to court to prove it. For example, if you download a song and burn part of it to CD and hand them out to your students as part of their homework on modern culture, you probably have met all the criteria for fair use. and whether the copyright holder likes it or not, they're going to lose if they take you to court.
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Market effect is one of four nature of use factors that 17 USC 701 says are to be considered in determining fair use, but you don't have to "meet" all four. The l
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Re:Que: Your parents. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, actually there is a another legal angle that makes the "everybody else is doing it to" argument useful. If they can show something like selective enforcement (I don't know what the civil equivalent of this is, but I'm pretty sure that their is one) Then the suit would either need to be dropped or expanded to include MS, Yahoo and all the rest.
This would be to google's advantage because of the additional legal and political weight that the other players could bring to bear, and because it would make their opposition's case seem that much more absurd.
Parent
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How? You're going to force copyright holders to sue more than one infringing party at once? Surely going after one case to get the precedent is the oldest one in the book?
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Unless I'm missing something, I don't understand how Google is somehow following the intent of the law. Copyright is a limited monopoly granted to the work's owner to control distribution (hence "copy" "right"). The idea is that they presumably may want to sell this work, thus making it profitable to produce more such works (which, presumably, is to the benefit of their fell
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This behaviour boils down to three businesses wanting to make more money, ignoring decades or centuries of background to the copyright principle that is even recognised explicitly in the Constitution of the US, in statute law in many other jurisdictions, and under international treaties. I don't think "everyone's doing it" is going to hold a whole lot of weight with any sane court here, no matter how expensive the legal teams.
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I haven't been able to use that line on my kid ever since the Turkish sheep incident [usatoday.com]. She just replies, "If the bodies are piled high enough to cushion my fall, then sure!"
Microsoft and Yahoo: soft, fluffy bodies?
Necessarily (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course.
Because if I didn't, "everyone" wouldn't have jumped off the cliff - violating the premise.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Amazing! (Score:4, Insightful)
If my buddy and I violate someone's copyright, and the copyright holder sues me and not him, guess what? That's his or her decision. Their copyright does not somehow become "less valid" because of whom they take legal action against, or do not take such action against.
Now, for _trademarks_, it's a different story. But, clearly, scanning in entire books has far more to do with copyrights than trademarks, at least in this case.
Re:Amazing! (Score:5, Informative)
All google wants is a fair chance at being able to scan those books that Yahoo and Microsoft have already gotten permission for. We are not talking about violating Copyrights.
Who knows. This may turn into a new form of discrimination where publishers can say "we dont like you so No you cant use my books....but we like this guy" Personally, I say if you make it open to one....you must make it open to all.
Parent
Re:Amazing! (Score:5, Informative)
I must have missed the bill where the "everyone is doing it" defense was made valid.
For copyright it does make a difference because the laws are based upon the effect of an action. Fair use allows people to copy works without the copyright holder's permission in certain instances. So far, the legal precedent pretty much is all in Google's favor, but because the effect of their action on the market is one of the four things considered for fair use, showing that the market in general is already doing this is an important legal point to shut down any arguments about that provision.
If my buddy and I violate someone's copyright, and the copyright holder sues me and not him, guess what? That's his or her decision.
You've got this all wrong. This is to determine if they are violating the copyright. An analogy is firing a gun. Sometimes it is target practice and legal and sometimes it is murder. Google copied works. Now the law is determining if that copying is illegal.
But, clearly, scanning in entire books has far more to do with copyrights than trademarks, at least in this case.
Yes, this is a copyright case, but not all copying is illegal and some is specifically designated as legal. For example, the courts have ruled that it is perfectly legal to copy every image you can find on the internet, and store those images, for the purpose of providing a thumbnail image of those images for profit. That is because what is being sold is meta-data about where you can find an image, not the images themselves. The courts have also ruled that making low quality copies of porn images and making them available is illegal, because the intent was for people to just look at the images and the effect upon the market was to deprive the copyright holders of business.
What Google is doing in almost every way is similar to the former. They copy an entire work, but only for the purpose of providing an excerpt and "selling" information about what books will be helpful. Now, if they were to image and post certain works, like dictionaries or recipe books, with excerpts that are all a person wants, they might be in trouble, except for the fact that in order to claim damages a copyright holder has to have notified the violator of the infringement, and Google already removes any book at the request of the copyright holder.
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Anyway, you made a compelling argument that made sense to me. Before reading your post I was kind of on the "why the heck would google do something like this" side of the fence myself.
+1 Insightful...
Seems to me... (Score:2)
slogan change (Score:3, Funny)
Oh good (Score:3)
Sweet.
Buy old media to shut it up (Score:5, Insightful)
The optical fiber cos bought the phone cos.
The dot.coms bought the networks.
Rockefeller bought his competitors.
Culture should be free (Score:5, Insightful)
No. The public has also the right to digitized, freely accesible publications. And since these books are already freely available in public libraries, why shouldn't they be on the Internet?
Re:Culture should be free (Score:4, Interesting)
This kind of thing really isn't even unprecedented. There are similar dead tree references of this sort for other types of dead tree works. The book industry is just trying to be control freak pricks and trying to extract more revenue where they deserve none.
The federal judges should see this and just say: Piracy? What Piracy? Get the H*LL out of my courtroom and stop wasting my time.
Parent
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I'll accept your argument, as long as you get Google to agree that should any digitized copy of a work in their system leak so that more than small excerpts are available on-line, Google will immediately (a) compensate the copyright holder of that work at the same high rate of punitive damages that other copyright violations such as through P2P fall under in the US, and (b) shut down their system, since any argument about being fair use because is does no harm to copyright holders will have been completely
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I'll accept your argument, as long as you get Google to agree that should any digitized copy of a work in their system leak so that more than small excerpts are available on-line, Google will immediately
...not Google's problem. The very same argument was proposed when Xerox machines came into use. The maker of a tool is not responsible for misuse of that tool. Sorry, but Google already goes well beyond their required duties in this regard.
On the other hand, should you be able to prove that Google Books
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Library of Congress (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd rather see the Library of Congress do something like this instead of having it controlled by the publishers or Google or Yahoo or Microsoft. One would be very foolish to have anyone entity control this, and I'd rather it be free to all and not plastered by Adsense everywhere.
Which corporations would those be? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, this experiment with copyright is getting out of control. It's difficult for modern works to achieve classic status. Just last week I was reading that many anthology creators pick and choose their contents based more and more on what rights they can afford. Some modern authors might make a splash, but they're pricing their work out of range for posterity.
You could say that the market will sort this out -- but it's a tragedy what happens in the mean time. Good works will moulder and die as publishers and author's families try to pimp them for the final dollar. All I can think is, doesn't it make more sense to SHORTEN copyright periods as technology improves rather than to extend them? A book can be published, shipped, promoted, bought, and read the world over in a few years now rather than a decade.
Unintended benefit (Score:2)
>last week I was reading that many anthology creators pick and
>choose their contents based more and more on what rights they can
>afford.
Oh no! We won't be able to replace $TIME_HONORED_CLASSIC with
$MODERN_TRIPE?
I'm ordering some more genuine Mickey Mouse stuff right now, along
with a nice thank you note
Rich get richer (Score:5, Interesting)
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The only people copyright benefits are the creators of content.
You're mistaken. Copyright often benefits the distributors of content more than the creators. This is especially true in industries like the music business where a cartel controls distribution. Most artists lose money on copyrights. They actually have to pay to be distributed, more than their copyright makes, and make up the difference doing live shows and selling trademarked goods. And in general, the creators of copyright are dead long befo
Re:You are mistaken... (Score:4, Insightful)
In the short term, you are correct; but lawmakers consider both the short- and long-term.
Ha ha ha ha ha! Whew! That's a good one. You did not notice the perpetual copyright we now endure, and the ongoing disintegration of works created over the last 30 years? Lawmakers consider lobbying dollars and have happily sold out our future so certain companies can make tiny percentage more money with less competition.
In the long-term, copyright provides an incentive for people to create new things, and that benefits everyone in society.
Interestingly, even the US supreme court disagrees with you and states that in their opinion the current copyright laws are obviously not benefitting society. Only through a technicality of the wording have they not been struck down (Congress claims they are merely incompetent not being malicious and the supreme court does not have the authority to judge that they are lying).
Arguably, without copyright we would have many fewer interesting works as part of our culture.
Arguably with copyright we would have a lot more interesting works as part our culture. Have you heard the story of the movie "It's a Wonderful Life?" Sit down and take a load off and I'll spin you a tale. It was crap. It was a huge box office flop. It was tossed in a warehouse and left to rot. It was thoroughly unprofitable. There it sat until the copyright expired, many years later. PBS, strapped for cash, aired it near the holidays and it became a classic overnight. Like most great works, it was not immediately recognized as such. Under our current laws, that would never happen. No one would have ever heard of the movie because no one would have though it might make money for them.
No work has entered the public domain in 30 years and it seems unlikely that many ever will. In 130 years or so they'll probably extend copyrights again and if they don't most works will have been lost entirely or DRM will prevent them from playing. Under our current system the criteria for being available to the public is some executive's guess about profitability and that usually means anything unusual is out. Almost every one of the most popular TV shows of all time was either cancelled in its first season or saved by some weird chance.
So you're sitting here and telling me you really think the fact that 99% of the works for the last 30 years being unavailable to the public benefits society? I'm sorry, but you're nuts. Motivation is great and all but a 2 year copyright will work fine as motivation as 99% of works make most of their money in the first 2 years. And money is not even the biggest motivator for most artists. And finally, there are plenty of ways to make money without copyright, especially in this day and age of technology. Half the money made by Disney, or more comes from trademarks, not copyright. Do you really think if copyright went away entirely or was limited to 2 years, they'd just close up shop and go home, leaving those billions for someone else? Not a chance.
The damage to society our current laws are doing is more severe than the benefits it is bringing. We need to fix it. If we can't fix it, abolishing it entirely is better than what we have now. I say this as someone who makes most of my living writing and selling copyrighted works.
Parent
Tell me one thing... (Score:2)
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If Google uses the digitized books for self economic interest is not ok, I wonder what you guys think about peer-to-peer swapping of digitized books? No more 'economic benefits', is that ok?
You're probably thinking about the fact that non-commercial copyright infringement was legal up until the 70's and many people think it still is. Legally, it is not nearly as simple as you seem to think. It is not whether or not Google is making any money that is under consideration, but whether their way of making mo
Dawn of the Information Age (Score:5, Interesting)
If you could, what would you do to fix copyright?
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At this point? Nothing.
Are you saying you're unaware of the massive problems caused by our current copyright system, including the massive destruction of works and the government enforced prevention of old works from being revived?
Copyright gives an artist a right to determine how (and if) his/her work will be distributed. Calling up a flat fee and telling an artist that they do not have rights to the distribution of their work is nonsense. And ultimately who's to decide who gets what fee for what work
Point of view (Score:2)
I think the person who said this has missed the boat. The library is already controlled by corporate players, they are called publishers. Hence the reason it costs $250 for a text book on network security, but only $40 for a book on network security.
The question now is WHICH corporate players will control the library? Will print publishers continue to hold sway, or will the digital revolution move th
The Future of Libraries IS open (Score:2)
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Taking a couple pounds of cheese off the store shelf is illegal. Taking a couple of the sample cubes is not.
KFG
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However, since I had been on MarketWatch's page and saw the announcement come across the wire, I can't imagine someone else submitting the story first.
Then again, Zonk is on duty and he rejects a majority of my stories so maybe it's just a grudge thing.
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So if they can show everyone is doing it, and thus get away with it, then all I have to do is show "everyone" is downloading mp3's and I can get away with it.
No, if you can show you meet the balance of the fair use criteria for UPLOADING mp3's, including that you're not negatively affecting the market, then you can "get away with it." As far as I know, it is still in limbo if downloading copyrighted mp3's is illegal at all and I've yet to see a court case challenging it.