August 23, 2007
I love Google. I am a free rider on what is by far the most productive research tool of this generation. May they make billions.
Google has begun an ambitious project. It pays to have books scanned into a Google-searchable PDF format. We can now access books that have been available only in great university research libraries. This will change the way we understand the past.
Well, it will at least let us know how we might have understood the past. Not yet. Not quite. Not free.
Google is paying a fortune to scan in public domain books that it then closes to the viewers.
Again and again, I find on a Google screen the grim words: Copyrighted material. Now, for anything published after 1922, this may be true, though probably not if it was published before 1964. To establish copyright of 1923-63 materials, the copyright owner had to sub,it a renewal form to the Library of Congress in year 28 after the document was published. Most books in this era went into the public domain. Read the copyright rules here.
This fact created opportunities for reprint book publishers like Octagon, Dover, and Arno to reprint public domain books. They photographed the original book's pages, posted a new title page, and copyrighted . . . the title page.
No one can legally copyright a book that has gone into the public domain. But a smart publisher can fake it by copyrighting that portion of a reprinted book which is not in the public domain, such as a new title page or an introduction by some obscure academic. It may decide to copyright only the copyright notice itself.
What I find in case after case is that Google has paid its book scanners to scan reprint versions of books that went into the public domain decades ago.
So, I can access at most one page through Google search. If I try to access any other pages, other than the table of contents or the index, I get locked out. A screen pops up to tell me that the book is copyrighted.
Click why? and this takes you to a page explaining copyright law -- which does not actually apply to the page you are trying to view.
Yes, the new title page is copyrighted: the page with the reprint company's name on it. The rest of the book is in the public domain.
All right, this may be some kind of "fool the rubes" marketing program. Maybe the copyright notice is a way to persuade the reader that Google tried to make the book available, but it will not break the law. Good old Google! Maybe Google gets a little money when you order the book on-line from the page that Google's search engine brought you to.
Maybe? Probably.
You can check this by using Google to search for Octagon Books or Dover Books. Pick a pre-1923 title. Then search this on Google. You will come to a books.google.com link. Click it.
You will see a page from the book. Well, maybe you will. I won't, but I have Google's cookie blocked. I can't access Google videos, either.
At the lower right-hand corner, you will see this notice: Copyrighted material. At the right, there will be a list of links where you can buy the book. Hmmm.
Here is an example: Isabel Burton's Life of Captain Sir Richard Burton, published in 1893. The page is here.
To the right of the page is a link: Copyright. Click it, or click this. The page tells you that it was copyrighted in 2006. But what was copyrighted? The copyright notice. Nothing else. The hundreds of pages of scanned-in text are not copyrighted.
So, it comes down to this. I must decide which Google is guilty of: (1) not telling the employees who do the scanning to scan in the public domain part of a book and then create a new title page, with Google identified as the publisher; (2) persuading ill-informed viewers that they should buy the book by clicking a link -- a book that legally can posted free on-line.
It's Google's business. I can find books this way through searching for a phrase. So, I am not complaining. But if it were my company, I would open up the world of public domain materials and then use the Google algorithm to post a few Google ads on the page.
Microsoft is soon going into competition with Google Books: Microsoft Live Book Search. If Bill Gates spots this opportunity, maybe he will fill the gap left by Google.
Google Books wastes too much of my time. I search for a public domain book. What I find all too often is a locked-up public domain book with a phony legal excuse for not letting me read it. Google Books lets you read public domain books only if no one has reprinted it.
If Microsoft offered complete access all the time, it would save me wasted time. I would know that I would be able to read and download the book. I would always click Microsoft's link in preference to book.google.com.
Microsoft could easily create its own Print-on-Demand subsidiary, with someone else managing it. It would brand itself as the world's largest book reprint company. Once the scanning is done, the rest of it is cut-and-paste.
Microsoft would offer order links, just as Google Books does. But Microsoft would get the lion's share of the order. It would not be a few cents commission from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Anyone wanting to buy the book in a conventional format could do so. But the person could also print it out, which book lovers resist doing, as I know from experience from my site: www.FreeBooks.com
Come on Microsoft! Let's get some competition going! Let's you and Google Books battle it out for my money.
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