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Google wins book-scanning case: judge finds “fair use,” cites many benefits
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- falcolas 13y agoMETA: 84 upvotes and no comments? Something smells fishy...
- octo_t 13y agowhy? the best thing about HN is that normally if someone doesn't have an informative/useful comment about a topic, they don't say anything.
- falcolas 13y agoBecause it existed for 42 minutes prior to my comment, and in the few minutes since my comment (after hitting the #1 spot on the front page) there have been 9 new comments. It's not a typical usage pattern for HN, even on non-controversial topics.
- officemonkey 13y agoThis fits in with my use pattern: 1. See an article I want to read on HN. Upvote it, open link and HN thread in new tabs, scan the rest of the page for other articles. 2. Eventually read the article. 3. Read the HN page related to the article. Cogitate. Develop insightful comment. With other interruptions, all that could easily take 30-40 mins.
- eterm 13y agoMany upvotes aren't organic votes but instead are duplicate submissions which each count as an upvote for the first submitter. OT hijack: This can lead to news from popular sources being submitted because they are known to generate lots of votes. This leads to lots of people trying to be first to submit which leads to them getting lots of "upvotes", which further contributes to that source being known for upvotes. This leads to certain sources now always appearing regardless of the merit of the actual articles.
- falcolas 13y agoThe more you know. Thanks - that makes a lot more sense than some bot working around a spam filter. Seems like an obvious loophole as well.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoInteresting side effect action there. I wonder if re-submit votes should be damped in some way. One might use the length of time of the submitting account (avoid spammers who create an account and submit the same day, or create several accounts in one day and all submit the same article (although that one is caught by the software))
- eterm 13y agoPart of the problem though isn't that it's artificial accounts generating deliberate spam or shilling, it's disparate uncoordinated users each doing what they think will boost their karma. If I know that every codinghorror post gets to front page, I know that if I spot a new coding horror post I should submit to HN to get the karma. In an effort to be first I shouldn't check if it's previously been submitted, I should just submit. Therefore I will submit. If it turns out I'm not the first I'm just upvoting the article, if it turns out I am first I "win" a lot of karma. There's no way to differentiate between a genuinely interesting coding horror post that is getting submissions from people because it's a good post (of which there are many) and between a coding horror post that is getting submissions because people expect them to get submissions. After a while, even low quality sites that are known to have people who post them for this effect can get trapped into this cycle. This isn't an effect of spammers, it's an effect of a community who know how each other behave. If you can't differentiate between this and more "genuine" activity then you cannot dis-incentivise the activity you wish to prevent.
- x3c 13y ago>The decision also comes as a major volte-face for Judge Chin... that the higher court (on which he now sits) wanted him to acknowledge fair use. I find it very disheartening. The reasons given by the judge are very fair and convincing. If it's true that he ruled this way because higher court wanted him to acknowledge fair use, judge was not objective. I wonder if his stance, now or previously, was politically motivated. Let's wish that the judge came to this decision solely on the merits of arguments for/against "fair use". The alternative is depressing to think about.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> If it's true that he ruled this way because higher court wanted him to acknowledge fair use, judge was not objective. "wanted" is the wrong word here. Chin previously issued a ruling without properly considering fair use. The higher court (the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit) took the case on appeal, found that the failure to consider fair use was a legal error, reversed Chin's earlier decision because of that flaw, and sent the case back to Chin with a legally binding order that fair use be addressed. That's what we have appellate courts for; its not a failure of objectivity for a lower court judge to follow binding directives from higher courts.
- jrs99 13y agoi don't think the reasons are convincing. I don't think that it benefits the public is a good reason.
- x3c 13y agoCourts are always mindful of public policy while making rulings. So, benefiting public has been a valid reason for a long time. And I think it's a good reason. Now does this really benefit people or not is another question. I think it does. Do you think it does not?
- jrs99 13y agoi don't think it benefits authors. I think searching for a book and reading a few pages and being done with it. That isn't ideal for authors at all. Some people just need to read a few things in the book.
- droopybuns 13y ago> Chin also rejected the theory that Google was depriving authors of income, noting that the company does not sell the scans or make whole copies of books available. He concluded, instead, that Google Books served to help readers discover new books and amounted to “new income from authors.” Fire up your torrents. We have a new precedent for the legality of file sharing. As long as the pirates aren't selling you the files, they're helping you discover new movies!
- aqme28 13y ago"or make whole copies of books available"
- droopybuns 13y agoYou won't miss it if they trim a few minutes of dialog from the Phantom Menace. Boom, MPAA legal team out of business!
- GotAnyMegadeth 13y agoI think I know exactly which minutes of dialogue I'd like to trim from TPM
- wiredfool 13y agoYeah, but think about the effect on the work's value.
- chc 13y agoThat is still effectively a whole copy. The law is not a poorly configured spam filter that you can get around by changing a couple of words here and there.
- res0nat0r 13y agoNope. If your torrent only contains a single page from each chapter maybe, but wholesale copying is still against the law. You can't read entire books on Google Books.
- blackoil 13y agoIs this Google only or anyone e.g. Microsoft and Amazon, can also now start scanning/distributing books?
- homosaur 13y agoMicrosoft did do it, they found no profit in it and quit. Google is still not making the full text of books available, although I'd guess long term that would be the smart move for authors. You'd go straight from search to purchasing an ebook in a click.
- x3c 13y agoI'm not sure but since this ruling took place in higher courts, lower courts now have a precedent set. Similar cases will tend to lean this way, unless exceptional circumstances.
- ghaff 13y agoIt's probably worth mentioning that this is a decision made in a specific circuit but the general point still applies.
- Oletros 13y agoGoogle ruling is not the first ruling, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild_v._HathiTrust http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild_v._HathiTrust
- Aldo_MX 13y agoI would love if in the future Google (or any other company) begins selling digital editions of books that can only be acquired in paper. Digital books are the future.
- TillE 13y agoI'd be happy enough if they were only allowed to do that for out-of-print books. If you've pursued an interest in nearly any area of history, you'll know that there are tons of books that are still in copyright but quite difficult to find.
- Aldo_MX 13y agoTo be honest, with out-of-print books I don't care about copyright and I just simply photocopy them, if the publisher wants my money they should reprint the books or release them digitally. IMHO the copyright should get voided when the work gets out of circulation, but copyright will be extended as long as required to prevent Mickey Mouse to join the public domain...
- ChuckMcM 13y agoThat was a nice turnaround. The earlier decisions by Chin had me thinking he had already decided for the Authors Guild (so tempted to say AG there but that reads 'attorney general' sigh). Now the next question is whether or not the Authors will come back to the table in being willing to let Google give them money for selling an out of print scan of their book to someone. That should be a no brainer "hey money you would not otherwise get!" but as we've seen there is never enough free money to make it worthwhile.
- TillE 13y agoAs much as I desperately want out-of-print books to be available, I really didn't like that court case. The idea of a small group of authors being allowed to negotiate away the rights of authors everywhere to one party only (Google) is absurd. This is something that really needs legislative action.
- kamjam 13y agoI don't understand why. Any other company now (presumably) has the right to digitally offer out of print books too. No one else wants to do it, either out of lack of motivation, cost or potential revenue. You can't blame Google for that, this is a massive step forward for society. It's not really a win for free markets if you now need to legislate.
- waqf 13y agoI believe GP is talking not about this decision but about what would have happened if https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Books_Settlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Books_Settlement had not been shot down in 2011. This outcome allows everyone to digitize out-of-print books, whereas the settlement would have granted Google a monopoly on them in exchange for a fee to the Authors' Guild.
- RexRollman 13y ago"Chin also rejected the theory that Google was depriving authors of income, noting that the company does not sell the scans or make whole copies of books available." I don't see how this would make out of print books available. It would only allow them to come up in a search result.
- Mikeb85 13y agoPersonally, I prefer paper books anyway. E-books don't provide the same experience. Also, what Google provides is no different than what you get from going into a store and flipping through the book's pages. It's good for the consumer (to know what they're getting) and for the author. Paper book sales would likely be lower if they were all encased in plastic prior to sale...
- Jagat 13y ago>>Also, what Google provides is no different than what you get from going into a store and flipping through the book's pages Besides a few hours of time that you'd lose in going to the bookstore, searching for the book you may never find, and flipping through the book?
- sidcool 13y agoI agree with you that paper books are more a pleasure to read than e-books, but the case wasn't about that. It was for preserving books and giving customers more choices. I think the decision is a good one.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- skj 13y agoAlso, when you go into a bookstore you don't see all the unread messages in your inbox. Clearly the GP was referring to a single facet of what Google provides.
- toomuchtodo 13y agoI don't want to go back to a world where I can't carry my entire book library (3K+ books) on a Kindle with me.
- Mikeb85 13y agoWhat would be really nice is a world where you buy the paper book, and get the e-book with it. I like my oversized book shelf at home, but taking books with you is also convenient.
- Nitramp 13y agoEight years for the process. That legal systems seems thoroughly broken.
- DannyBee 13y ago(Sadly, i can't comment on the decision itself, but i can comment on the meta-arguments here :P) Eight years for large, insanely complex litigation involving hundreds of thousands of pages of documents does not seem that thoroughly broken. Also, judges have a large number of these complex cases on their dockets at once, because the US in general thinks lawsuits are great way to resolve normal disputes. This is why most courts order mediation/settlement talks etc in these complex cases (and there was a settlement, it just wasn't approved). TL;DR If you want serious efficiency, asking it from a bunch of overworked judges trying to oversee a large number of complex cases seems a bit much. They do what they can, and try to get folks to resolve out of court, but often parties just want their day in court, and that takes time.
- Nitramp 13y agoI think you just listed a whole bunch of reasons why that legal system is broken. It's IMHO quite questionable whether such a law suit must be insanely complex and involve hundreds of thousands of pages of documents. And then subsequently, why judges have to be overworked, etc.
- fpgeek 13y agoA lot of the complexity comes from this being the first case to deal with this kind of issue. That means a lot needed to be sorted out along the way (even such simple things as which legal issue should be considered first). Now that this ruling has been made (and assuming it holds up on appeal), the next case along the same lines will be much simpler. Some of those cases might not happen at all (since the expected result will now be clear).
- DannyBee 13y ago"It's IMHO quite questionable whether such a law suit must be insanely complex and involve hundreds of thousands of pages of documents." There is essentially some minimum amount of documentation necessary to resolve a lawsuit. For something that involves a class of many thousands of plaintiffs, works, and claims, needing essentially 10 pages per person (or whatever) is just not a lot. I mean, do you expect Google search to be 50 lines of code? Also note that part of the purpose of discovery is to get everyone's cards on the table. You are often required to produce any possibly relevant info, which in this day and age, includes large volumes of emails. The whole goal here is that there should be no surprises, and hopefully, the dispute should be resolvable without going to trial once everyone's hand is shown. Judges are overworked because the judiciary is underfunded. We are too busy making useless tanks to add to the collection we have in the desert.
- grellas 13y agoLaw in general, and copyright law in particular, may be applied mechanically or it may be applied with insight, and the results can vary widely depending on which approach is used. There is a lot in copyright law that would have allowed a judge to reject Google's fair use defense almost out of hand, as it were. Google had the temerity to copy some 20 million copyrighted works without the authors' permission. It did not limit itself to copying select portions for some discrete educational purpose but copied every work in its entirety. And it used those copies in a for-profit enterprise to enhance its business and advance its profitability. Taken as a whole, such factors would have allowed a court to conclude that the uses Google made of the copyrighted works readily failed to meet the requirements of the fair use defense and thus left the book industry, in effect, frozen in an early 20th century analog world. Judge Chin, however, is obviously a judge who knows how to apply the law with insight and this shows him to be an outstanding jurist. Rather than applying the law mechanically, he stepped back to first principles and thought through very carefully how the copyright law ought to be applied in order to fulfill its intended purpose - that is, as set forth in the Constitution, in order to promote the arts and sciences. His decision goes through the Copyright Act's four statutory factors primarily used for determining whether a fair use defense exists or not but is grounded in something far deeper than those factors. Yes, Google's use of the copied works was "highly transformative" and this weighs heavily in favor of a finding of fair use (first factor). Yes, the nature of the copyrighted works is that they are all published works and mostly non-fiction, and this too weighs in favor of fair use (second factor). Yes, the amount of copying is of entire works but Google offers search results in carefully controlled snippets, and these factors combined weigh slightly against fair use (third factor). Yes, the effect of the copying on the market or value of the copyrighted works actually enhances the sales of books for the copyright holders by increasing their visibility and making them accessible to potential buyers, and this too favors a finding of fair use. All this is true, and is pretty carefully analyzed in the decision. But, in the end, this technical analysis is merely the backdrop for what primarily motivated the judge's decision and that was his overwhelming sense that laws must be applied in light of their intended purposes and not used to choke off the results that the very law in question was intended to further. In other words (and these are my words and my assessment and not the judge's), it is ludicrous in an increasingly technological world that society should not benefit from a project so stupendous as that of a private party investing enormous resources to transform millions of obscure works of literature into a treasure trove of searchable materials made freely available to users of all types, including those who have historically been physically impaired from using them at all, and all the while taking all reasonable steps to ensure that these materials are offered in a way that respects the legitimate concerns of the copyright holders. Copyright gives authors substantial rights to control what is done with their works. It prevents others from exploiting such works commercially without their permission. But this has never prevented others from making fair use of those works for educational goals and the like. In educational settings, it has been possible for a long time now to copy quite freely from copyrighted works for class projects and the like. Such copying is deemed fair because, while not significantly impairing the true commercial rights of copyright holders, it furthers the progress of arts and science. And that is the point of what Google is doing here with its books project. In ways for which many are deeply thankful, it is using all the resources of modern technology to add huge value to otherwise dormant copyrighted works and to use the resulting product in ways that truly advances arts and science. If copyright should be used to defeat that sort of project, then it undercuts the very rationale upon which it exists in the first place. Though if applied merely mechanically, it might be used for such a purpose, it ought not be used that way. And that is, in essence, what Judge Chin concluded. Here are his words on this point: "In my view, Google Books provides significant public benefits. It advances the progress of the arts and sciences, while maintaining respectful consideration for the rights of authors and other creative individuals, and without adversely impacting the rights of copyright holders. It has become an invaluable research tool that permits students, teachers, librarians, and others to more efficiently identify and locate books. It has given scholars the ability, for the first time, to conduct full-text searches of tens of millions of books. It preserves books, in particular out-of-print and old books that have been forgotten in the bowels of libraries, and it gives them new life. It facilitates access to books for print-disabled and remote or underserved populations. It generates new audiences and creates new sources of income for authors and publishers. Indeed, all society benefits." This is a soundly reasoned decision that is a highlight of modern law not so much because of any deep legal reasoning as such but because it profoundly captures and applies the spirit of the law in ways that comport with modern technological advancement. The decision protects innovators such as Google while upholding in every fundamental the legitimate interests of copyright holders. In this way, it upholds the traditional framework of the law while allowing it to be sensibly applied to new developments. There is nothing revolutionary here. But it is an encouraging sign that courts are able to adapt to the times and is thus a highly positive development.
- tn13 13y agoWe can endlessly argue over the correctness of this decision but I am little surprised that authors guild actually sued Google for this. It is like website owners suing Google for crawling, indexing and increasing visibility of their website. Clearly, what Google had done was beneficial for the entire book industry. May be the Authors guild was more interested in some kind of rent seeking rather than actually protecting anyone's interest. I am sure even that must have been noticed by the judge.
- jrochkind1 13y agoWell, it was seven years ago they filed the suit. But yeah, they sure are sticking to it. > It is like website owners suing Google for crawling, indexing and increasing visibility of their website. Yeah, that happened. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_10,_Inc._v._Google_Inc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_10,_Inc._v._Google_Inc..
- jrochkind1 13y agooh yeah and it wasn't the only time either: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121213/08013521375/belgian-newspapers-agree-to-drop-lawsuit-over-google-news-after-google-promises-to-show-them-how-to-make-money-online.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121213/08013521375/belgia...
- drakaal 13y agoI read this to say that Piracy is legal if you don't charge for it. There is no difference between putting a full book on line and a full movie. This won't stand for long, MPAA wouldn't have lost this case. Authors are just not as well organized.
- ncallaway 13y ago"I read this to say that Piracy is legal if you don't charge for it." This statement is not accurate. See my prior post about the four factor test for Fair Use. The judge ruled that this specific use (which doesn't distribute full books online) was fair use. Putting a movie online would almost certainly fail the Fair Use test. This case is far too complex to be summed up as "Google putting full books online".
- crbnw00ts 13y agoI think it's more like "piracy is legal if you do it on a large enough scale". If some snot-nosed teenager scanned a book and posted it on the web, the court would squash him like an insect. But a multi-billion-dollar company with an army of lawyers at their disposal scans every book and puts them all online, suddenly that's "fair use". It's like the old saying: if you owe the bank $100 you have a problem, but if you owe the bank $100 million, the bank has a problem.
- Oletros 13y agoBut no full book is posted online in this case
- peterwwillis 13y agoConsider that copyright originated as system with which to control people. The types of control sought were those of monetary, and thought/expression of thought. Monetary control goes back to antiquity, where copying a book required expensive literate slaves to copy a book for about the same price as publishing one. Thought and expression control goes back to the censorship systems of the church, who sought to prevent critical dissent via restricting publishing using licenses - later termed a "monopoly". These two systems were then combined in practice. Not only were the printers/publishers restricted and licensed, but what they could print or reprint as well. This control over what was published not only served the church and/or state's interests in enforcing dogmatic or state law, but also the monetary interests of the original publishers of a work. In essence, the publisher and the government form a pact to ensure each other's mutual interests, at the expense of the common citizen. It wasn't until 1710 that the game changed. The Statute of Anne ushered in not only the destruction of publishing monopolies, but the argument (in form of law) that "protecting" a work from copying was primarily an incentive for scholars to keep churning out more works - the argument summarized as: "Why would learned men compose and write useful books unless there was financial incentive?" Flash forward to today, and that's basically still the same argument used by anyone lobbying for copyright of anything. If it's copied and nobody gets paid, nobody will make anything [intellectual/creative/etc] anymore. Consider how amazingly specious this argument is today. Look at Wikipedia. Look at YouTube. Look at all the works being published under all the subversive licenses that are intended to surmount the aged limitations of copyright law. Do we really care to restrict what content you can produce, or if someone gets paid for it? More and more the arguments are about simple attibution, or freedom of use, than anything else. All this decision finds is that the copying of books is by and of itself no longer a harmful act. But we've known that for decades.
- res0nat0r 13y agoThe ruling doesn't allow wholesale display of said books on books.google.com though.
- peterwwillis 13y ago.....So?
- DonGateley 13y agoCan an author choose to opt in to Google selling suitably protected full copies with royalties? This could be great for authors since Google will have already have done all the hard work of creating the electronic object and providing availability.
- cscurmudgeon 13y agoGoogle should open up their search codebase. All the benefits cited for book scanning will apply here too. Come on Google. We know you can do it :) Nobody will deprive Google of any revenue. It will have lots of public benefits.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- mgunes 13y agoFor a contrasting perspective to the technology-centric, access-oriented view of "public benefits" that is typically dominant on HN, see the documentary "Google and the World Brain": http://www.worldbrainthefilm.com/ http://www.worldbrainthefilm.com/
- baldfat 13y agoAs a former Librarian I approve and my former colleagues for some weird reason disapprove :(