4 ms·

Fair use allows for this kind of thing, but is fuzzy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use The web is a little dif

Fair use allows for this kind of thing, but is fuzzy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use The web is a little different. One factor is that robots.txt is effectively an opt-out. But no, in general indexing a site doesn't require permission.

criddell 11y ago
Right, and I'm saying that indexing a book shouldn't require permission either. Just as you can use robots.txt to opt out of indexing, so can you contact Google and tell them to remove your work from their index.
- jim-greer 11y ago
  Whoops, misread your comment. Agreed.
- thedanfilter 11y ago
  But they aren't just indexing the book. They are copying it completely. Then using that copy to provide a commercial service to people that reinforces the Google brand. In a similar way, I could _borrow_ books from the library, take them home and digitise them, then return the library book while retaining the digital _copy_. I'm pretty sure this is not allowed under copyright law. However, if I go one step further, commercialising my collection of digitised books by providing them online to everyone in the world in a searchable format - but removing every few pages - that somehow makes the original copyright infringement legal?... Does Google Books provide a useful service? I think Yes. Do they infringe copyright to do it? I think Yes. How could they not infringe copyright? I suggest if they bought every book that they digitise, they would then have the right to index those books so that they could offer their fair use service to people. Optionally, publishing houses and authors could opt-in to the system by providing them with a free book or a waiver.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > In a similar way, I could _borrow_ books from the library, take them home and digitise them, then return the library book while retaining the digital _copy_. I'm pretty sure this is not allowed under copyright law. Its, on first glance, a violation of the copyright owner's exclusive rights to create copies, sure. Whether its actually infringement or not depends on whether it falls in one of the exceptions to the exclusive rights, such as fair use. Copying a library book and just to keep it for yourself does not seem likely to do that. > However, if I go one step further, commercialising my collection of digitised books by providing them online to everyone in the world in a searchable format - but removing every few pages - that somehow makes the original copyright infringement legal?... Quite possibly. Fair use is funny that way, because the boundaries are not crisply defined but anything that falls within it is an exception to the exclusive rights of copyright, transforming what would otherwise be infringement into non-infringement. > I suggest if they bought every book that they digitise, they would then have the right to index those books so that they could offer their fair use service to people. If the service is fair use, then whether they own physical copies or not is immaterial, since the users ownership of physical copies of the work is not one of the factors called to be considered in fair use analysis. You don't acquire a right to fair use of a copyrighted work by purchasing a copy of the work, everyone has an inherent right to fair use (which was a judicially identified limitation of Constitutional character before being enshrined in statute) inherently.
    - thedanfilter 11y ago
      I'm not so much disagreeing with what you have said, as obviously the various courts this has already been through hold a similar position on the matter, however, I would like to emphasise two points: 1) Google continue to possess _copies_ of books that they do not own. Hence my suggesting they purchase the books (i.e. I don't think that partnerships with libraries is enough). To offer the service of Google Books they must retain these copies, i.e. to allow you to read individual pages of the books. 2) Fair use usually entails the production of another copyrighted work that includes as a very small portion the existing copyrighted material. For example, a quote in a book. However, there are some instances such as for criticism or satire that allow a far greater amount of the original material to be used. But my main point is that a new work is created that is now distributable and is complete in and of itself, i.e. it does not rely on the maintenance of any source materials for its continued existence, e.g., a paper, a book, a video, a movie, a poster, a painting, a program, etc. The copyrighted work that Google have created is entirely their own, i.e. the source code related to the Google Books service. The copyrighted material they are using is the data used by their system. I don't think it is right to argue that each time a person accesses Google Books that the transformation from data in the database to webpage output constitutes a fair use as the content output is largely just a subset of whichever book it is. There is no extra criticism, satire, or transformation added, as you can then read the output as you would a normal book, and the entire purpose is to read the book as the author originally wrote it (albeit with some pages missing).
  - criddell 11y ago
    > But they aren't just indexing the book. They are copying it completely. Is that different than what they do with web pages? Here's their copy of this site: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DjfN_3WYfIsJ:https://news.ycombinator.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DjfN_3...
apress 11y ago
Publishers can opt out of the book indexing, too (kind of like robots.txt) https://www.google.com/googlebooks/publisher_library.html https://www.google.com/googlebooks/publisher_library.html

criddell 11y ago

Right, and I'm saying that indexing a book shouldn't require permission either. Just as you can use robots.txt to opt out of indexing, so can you contact Google and tell them to remove your work from their index.

jim-greer 11y ago
Whoops, misread your comment. Agreed.
thedanfilter 11y ago
But they aren't just indexing the book. They are copying it completely. Then using that copy to provide a commercial service to people that reinforces the Google brand. In a similar way, I could _borrow_ books from the library, take them home and digitise them, then return the library book while retaining the digital _copy_. I'm pretty sure this is not allowed under copyright law. However, if I go one step further, commercialising my collection of digitised books by providing them online to everyone in the world in a searchable format - but removing every few pages - that somehow makes the original copyright infringement legal?... Does Google Books provide a useful service? I think Yes. Do they infringe copyright to do it? I think Yes. How could they not infringe copyright? I suggest if they bought every book that they digitise, they would then have the right to index those books so that they could offer their fair use service to people. Optionally, publishing houses and authors could opt-in to the system by providing them with a free book or a waiver.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > In a similar way, I could _borrow_ books from the library, take them home and digitise them, then return the library book while retaining the digital _copy_. I'm pretty sure this is not allowed under copyright law. Its, on first glance, a violation of the copyright owner's exclusive rights to create copies, sure. Whether its actually infringement or not depends on whether it falls in one of the exceptions to the exclusive rights, such as fair use. Copying a library book and just to keep it for yourself does not seem likely to do that. > However, if I go one step further, commercialising my collection of digitised books by providing them online to everyone in the world in a searchable format - but removing every few pages - that somehow makes the original copyright infringement legal?... Quite possibly. Fair use is funny that way, because the boundaries are not crisply defined but anything that falls within it is an exception to the exclusive rights of copyright, transforming what would otherwise be infringement into non-infringement. > I suggest if they bought every book that they digitise, they would then have the right to index those books so that they could offer their fair use service to people. If the service is fair use, then whether they own physical copies or not is immaterial, since the users ownership of physical copies of the work is not one of the factors called to be considered in fair use analysis. You don't acquire a right to fair use of a copyrighted work by purchasing a copy of the work, everyone has an inherent right to fair use (which was a judicially identified limitation of Constitutional character before being enshrined in statute) inherently.
  - thedanfilter 11y ago
    I'm not so much disagreeing with what you have said, as obviously the various courts this has already been through hold a similar position on the matter, however, I would like to emphasise two points: 1) Google continue to possess _copies_ of books that they do not own. Hence my suggesting they purchase the books (i.e. I don't think that partnerships with libraries is enough). To offer the service of Google Books they must retain these copies, i.e. to allow you to read individual pages of the books. 2) Fair use usually entails the production of another copyrighted work that includes as a very small portion the existing copyrighted material. For example, a quote in a book. However, there are some instances such as for criticism or satire that allow a far greater amount of the original material to be used. But my main point is that a new work is created that is now distributable and is complete in and of itself, i.e. it does not rely on the maintenance of any source materials for its continued existence, e.g., a paper, a book, a video, a movie, a poster, a painting, a program, etc. The copyrighted work that Google have created is entirely their own, i.e. the source code related to the Google Books service. The copyrighted material they are using is the data used by their system. I don't think it is right to argue that each time a person accesses Google Books that the transformation from data in the database to webpage output constitutes a fair use as the content output is largely just a subset of whichever book it is. There is no extra criticism, satire, or transformation added, as you can then read the output as you would a normal book, and the entire purpose is to read the book as the author originally wrote it (albeit with some pages missing).
- criddell 11y ago
  > But they aren't just indexing the book. They are copying it completely. Is that different than what they do with web pages? Here's their copy of this site: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DjfN_3WYfIsJ:https://news.ycombinator.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DjfN_3...

apress 11y ago

Publishers can opt out of the book indexing, too (kind of like robots.txt) https://www.google.com/googlebooks/publisher_library.html https://www.google.com/googlebooks/publisher_library.html