Wall Street Journal Talks On Google Print
Jason Fry, Authors' Second Chance, Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2005. Excerpt:
Amazon.com's "Search Inside This Book" feature, which works in a similar way, is an opt-in program, so why is Google insisting publishers opt out? Things make more sense if you start off by thinking about how to build a search engine....Of course Google is storing entire books -- you can't make a usable search engine if you've only got bits and pieces to search against....(Some have noted that Google asks permission to include paid content in its index, but that's another red herring. These days, most creators of paid content on the Web are trying to figure out how to make their content searchable by the wider world and still get paid for it. Being shut out of Google is a problem that needs a solution, not a desired state of affairs.) The important thing isn't what's stored but what's shown -- and what Google's showing shouldn't worry anyone. (Granted, reference books, cookbooks and other works whose small chunks have great value may well be an exception, in which case publishers can remove them.) Google Print bills itself as a tool for finding information, not for reading, and from a few hours playing with it, I'm inclined to agree. I tried to use Google Print searches to cheat my way through two current favorites...Neither attempt worked for very long nor was anything close to a pleasurable reading experience. As for the opt-in model, we're all lucky that Google and its rivals didn't build their Web search engines that way: A search engine built via opt-in would be a failure, demanding a quixotic, ruinously expensive pursuit of ever-multiplying sources of new information. The only sane way to build a search engine is to index everything automatically and let Web-site operators that don't want to be included opt out....Besides, what Google's doing appears to be well within the realm of the "fair use" provisions of copyright law, meaning the company doesn't have to ask permission for the basics of Google Print anyway. I'm not a lawyer, but Jonathan Band is, and his analysis of the copyright implications of Google Print is a fascinating read....Mr. Band's conclusions: Google Print does have commercial purposes, but Google's not looking to profit from book sales; building a search engine requires it to "use" the complete work; and it's highly unlikely that Google's use will hurt demand for the books stored and searched....Many a frustrated author can tell you that being published is just the start of the dream of making it as a writer: If your publisher doesn't back your book, or it doesn't quickly connect with the reading public, it'll soon fall out of print and very few people will ever hear of you or your ideas again. That's exactly the frustration that's driven many writers to the Web, where anyone can publish and be guaranteed a world-wide audience for his or her thoughts. But it's not the Web itself that makes that guarantee -- it's the search engines that tame the Web's terabytes upon terabytes of information by making it all searchable.
Source: Peter Suber. OANews. Another defense of Google Library (10/10/2005) [FullText]
Amazon.com's "Search Inside This Book" feature, which works in a similar way, is an opt-in program, so why is Google insisting publishers opt out? Things make more sense if you start off by thinking about how to build a search engine....Of course Google is storing entire books -- you can't make a usable search engine if you've only got bits and pieces to search against....(Some have noted that Google asks permission to include paid content in its index, but that's another red herring. These days, most creators of paid content on the Web are trying to figure out how to make their content searchable by the wider world and still get paid for it. Being shut out of Google is a problem that needs a solution, not a desired state of affairs.) The important thing isn't what's stored but what's shown -- and what Google's showing shouldn't worry anyone. (Granted, reference books, cookbooks and other works whose small chunks have great value may well be an exception, in which case publishers can remove them.) Google Print bills itself as a tool for finding information, not for reading, and from a few hours playing with it, I'm inclined to agree. I tried to use Google Print searches to cheat my way through two current favorites...Neither attempt worked for very long nor was anything close to a pleasurable reading experience. As for the opt-in model, we're all lucky that Google and its rivals didn't build their Web search engines that way: A search engine built via opt-in would be a failure, demanding a quixotic, ruinously expensive pursuit of ever-multiplying sources of new information. The only sane way to build a search engine is to index everything automatically and let Web-site operators that don't want to be included opt out....Besides, what Google's doing appears to be well within the realm of the "fair use" provisions of copyright law, meaning the company doesn't have to ask permission for the basics of Google Print anyway. I'm not a lawyer, but Jonathan Band is, and his analysis of the copyright implications of Google Print is a fascinating read....Mr. Band's conclusions: Google Print does have commercial purposes, but Google's not looking to profit from book sales; building a search engine requires it to "use" the complete work; and it's highly unlikely that Google's use will hurt demand for the books stored and searched....Many a frustrated author can tell you that being published is just the start of the dream of making it as a writer: If your publisher doesn't back your book, or it doesn't quickly connect with the reading public, it'll soon fall out of print and very few people will ever hear of you or your ideas again. That's exactly the frustration that's driven many writers to the Web, where anyone can publish and be guaranteed a world-wide audience for his or her thoughts. But it's not the Web itself that makes that guarantee -- it's the search engines that tame the Web's terabytes upon terabytes of information by making it all searchable.
Source: Peter Suber. OANews. Another defense of Google Library (10/10/2005) [FullText]
posted by Israel Scholar | 23.10.05
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