[A2k] Jamie Boyle: We Must Stop Google Books Because It Will Work!!!
John G. Heim
jheim@math.wisc.edu
Tue Sep 8 20:53:20 2009
Well, I guess you're preaching to the choir on this list.
IMO, though, a better approach to the public at large is to point out that
intellectual property rights were created to ensure that authors would
continue to generate works. The idea is that by fairly compensating authors=
,
they'd be motivated to generate even more material. In other words, the
whole idea behind intellectual property rights is that restricting access
will lead to greater creativity and therefore greater access in the long
run. But it just doesn't make sense under that justification to create laws
protecting intellectual property rights to the degree that they stifle
everyone's access to materials they really need. If our IP laws are such
that they stifle creativity, then they are destructive to the purpose for
which they were created in the first place.
I can recognize that an author has a right to a fair day's pay for a fair
day's work. That's a separate issue but it has never been a problem. There
is no shortage of authors. People aren't deserting the craft of writing for
careers in business or IT or something. If anything, there's too many
authors. If anything, there's too many people trying to be the next John
Steinbeck.
No, the basic justification for IPR has always been that in the long run, i=
t
encourages creativity. It's the very backwards argument that less access
will, in the end, lead to greater access. And that could be. Life isn't
always straight forward. But before I'd believe that something like google
books is going to stifle creativity, I'd have to see some pretty good
evidence. Way, way better evidence than what I've seen so far. In my
opinion, anyone looking at IP laws with an unjaundiced eye would have to
conclude that our current laws indeed stifle creativity.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Manon Ress" <manon.ress@keionline.org>
To: "a2k discuss list" <a2k@lists.essential.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 5:17 PM
Subject: [A2k] Jamie Boyle: We Must Stop Google Books Because It Will
Work!!!
http://www.thepublicdomain.org/2009/09/08/we-must-stop-google-books-because=
-it-will-work/
We Must Stop Google Books Because It Will Work!!!
There are good reasons to worry about the Google Book Search
Settlement, as I explained at length here. But of all of the reasons
to oppose it, this utterly surreal statement is my favourite.
European officials fear that if the Google project goes ahead in the
US, a yawning transatlantic gap will open up in education and research.
=93Oh my God! The Americans are about to create a private workaround of
the enormous mess that we regulators have made of national copyright
policy! They will fix the unholy legal screwups that leave most of
20th century culture books unavailable, yet still under copyright!
They will gain access to their cultural heritage =97 giving them a huge
competitive advantage in education. This MUST BE STOPPED!! No one
can be allowed to fix this for any other country because then we would
be left alone stewing in our own intellectual property stupidity! We
must forbid their progress in order to protect our ignorance.
But wait, there=92s more. If anyone does do it, it must be the state!
(Which so far has failed completely to provide legal access to orphan
works or commercially unavailable works, works that are unavailable
because of=85 wait for it, wait for it, the state locking up our
cultural heritage unnecessarily)
Google maintains it is engaged in the huge project for the public
good. Others say such public good should be left to the public sphere.
[Actually, Google says it is doing it to make money, but that it will
produce an enormous public good, something that makes the company very
happy.] But look at the phrase in bold. Only the state may fix the
problems the state has created. And if Europe can=92t fix those
problems for itself, everyone else should be forbidden from doing so
as well. QED. Now, to the credit of the EU, the article suggests that
the EU will pursue this not only by trying to ban what Google wants to
do, something France and Germany have already attempted, but by
=93copyright reform and =93public-private partnerships as a means to boost
digitisation of books.=94 Great. But how about treating the Google
Books project as a demonstration of an entirely unnecessary problem
created by states =97 particularly including European and American
copyright policy makers. If it weren=92t for the ridiculous copyright
extensions, abolition of formalities and ending of renewable terms,
we wouldn=92t have the problem of the 20th century black hole. Now a
company manages to craft a settlement that will work around this,
restoring, at least for some citizens of the world, access to a
heritage that they never should have lost =97 and to do so in a way that
pays authors and publishers where they can be found. Europe=92s
answer? This must be forbidden! Stop the settlement! Make sure no
European books get freed! Make European participation only on an =93opt
in=94 basis, so NO orphan works =97 by definition =97 can be included,
since they have no one to opt in for them. Complain that a private
company is involved!! Prevent this settlement now to stop the US
getting a lead, and maybe one day we=92ll fix the problems that we the
regulators created in the first place! (Yeah, right.)
Brilliant. You couldn=92t make this stuff up.
http://twitter.com/thepublicdomain
***************************************************************************
Manon Ress
manon.ress@keionline.org
Knowledge Ecology International
1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA
Tel.: +1.202.332.2670, Fax: +1.202.332.2673
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