Charlie's Diary

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Wed, 09 Nov 2005 Copywrongs Salon.com is currently running an article on the controversy surrounding Googles plans to index books on paper, as well as on the web. It's a deeply annoying article, because whoever wrote it seems unaware that the argument is being misrepresented by two of the three sides: Google insists that its project is legal, as it would only offer snippets -- one or two sentences -- of copyrighted works that publishers had not given the company permission to scan. It also argues that its plan would boost, not reduce, book sales, and would be a boon to the book industry. But its quest to bring books to the Web now looks certain to spark a major courtroom battle, I'm generally in favour of making books available on the net, both as a reader and as a writer. But it seems to me that The Authors Guild are absolutely right to bring a lawsuit against Google over this project -- because a critical aspect of the publishing world is being damaged by Google's ignorance. Which is this: Publishers do not generally own copyright over the books they publish -- authors own copyright, and license publishers to make certain uses of their work, with strings attached. I can't emphasize this strongly enough; in talking about getting permission to index the books from publishers, Google is talking to the wrong people. Let me give you a concrete example. I'm a relatively recently published author, and my book contracts all discuss electronic reproduction rights. However, none of my book contracts discuss the issue of the rights to index the book and publish the index for use by third parties. Arguably, this is a separate contractual right and one that is not implicitly granted to any publishers simply by their having obtained a license to publish the work in its entirety as an ebook. But that's not all. I'm published in the USA and the UK (and in translation in a whole lot of other countries). The English language ebook rights to my novels are split, by territory; before I could release Accelerando as a free download I had to obtain permission from both my US publisher (Ace, an imprint of Penguin) and my UK publisher (Orbit, an imprint of Time Warner). Without the consent of one of these publishers, it would be illegal to make the ebook available in their territories (as enumerated at mind-numbing length in the book contract -- if you've never seen one of these, it's like the deed of sale for a house). Moreover, the rights to publish an authors' books may well revert to the author if the publisher stops using them to make money. If, for example, a book goes out of print (that is, the publisher runs out of copies and decides not to reprint it), or if sales fall below a certain number, the author can notify the publisher that they are terminating the contract, at which point the publisher stops being allowed to publish the book and the author can take it to another publisher or publish it for themself. By asking publishers to grant them a right that the publisher is not entitled to grant Google is laying itself open to lawsuits for copyright violation by authors. Google is also systematically undermining the rights of authors to exercise control over how their copyrighted works are published. I, personally, think the Google print index is a great idea, and I'd really like it to succeed. However, it would be counter-productive to say the least were Google to contribute to the reduction of authors -- the folks who write the books -- to the status of producers of work for hire. Andrew Burt, of the University of Denver Department of Computer Science, has suggested one possible way out of the impasse; the adoption of a standard called COCOA, the Copyright Owners' Control of Access standard. The idea is that a database can be established which will permit publishers to specify their default preferences for online republication services such as Google print, or Amazon's search inside, and which will also allow authors to issue overriding instructions for all, or some, of their works. I think COCOA has considerable merit, although there are some technical shortcomings in the proposal that need to be addressed before implementation. For example, identification of copyrighted works can sometimes be difficult -- a book may be published in two or more countries with different ISBNs (they're granted on a per-publisher basis) and even with different titles. And COCOA needs to be able to handle access control sensibly in different countries. (For example, if a book is published in the UK and the USA, it makes no sense to forbid searching of the UK edition by users in the US, while permitting them to search the US edition -- and vice versa. Which is possible in the current draft of the scheme if the books are identified by different ISBNs.) Unfortunately, while I believe something like this is needed, I'm not sure how likely it is to be adopted in practice. Firstly, the large multinationals who are capable of indexing libraries -- Google, Microsoft, Amazon and the like -- have a vested interest in each presenting themselves as being the most comprehensive indexing service; thus, there is commercial pressure to ignore COCOA and index everything. Secondly, the potential loss of earnings at stake in any single work is small enough to make lawsuits look financially unattractive. A class action lawsuit against any one of the corporations will take years to settle, generate acrimony and ill-will, and probably fail; the Authors Guild, with 8000 members (most of them not terribly well paid) is a poor match for Microsoft or Amazon in court. Still, if you're involved in publishing or writing in any manner, I'd recommend you go and read the COCOA proposal and then, if you think it's a good idea, to sign the petition. And whenever you hear someone say that it's between Google and the publishers, correct them: because the people who really stand to lose -- to lose the rights to their own work -- are the authors. (As for me, I'm signing the petition -- and granting Google blanket permission to index my works and make them available to readers. Because, y'know, I'm happy for people to be able to find my work in the library; but it'd be nice if they asked for permission first.) [Link (Salon)] [Link (Cocoa)] [Discuss copyright-censorship] posted at: 17:41 | path: /copyright | permanent link to this entry

specials: Is SF About to Go Blind? -- Popular Science article by Greg Mone Unwirer -- an experiment in weblog mediated collaborative fiction Inside the MIT Media Lab -- what it's like to spend a a day wandering around the Media Lab "Nothing like this will be built again" -- inside a nuclear reactor complex Quick links: RSS Feed (Moved!) Who am I? Contact me Buy my books: (FAQ) Missile Gap Via Subterranean Press (US HC -- due Jan, 2007) The Jennifer Morgue Via Golden Gryphon (US HC -- due Nov, 2006) Glasshouse Via Amazon.com (US HC -- due June 30, 2006) The Clan Corporate Via Amazon.com (US HC -- out now) Accelerando Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB -- due June 27, 2006) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) Free download The Hidden Family Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) The Family Trade Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Iron Sunrise Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) The Atrocity Archives Via Amazon.com (Trade PB) Via Amazon.co.uk (Trade PB) Via Golden Gryphon (HC) Via Amazon.com (HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (HC) Singularity Sky Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Via Amazon.com (US ebook) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) Toast Via Amazon.com Via Amazon.co.uk Some webby stuff I'm reading: [ Engadget ] [ Gizmodo ] [ The Memory Hole ] [ Boing!Boing! ] [ Futurismic ] [ Walter Jon Williams ] [ Making Light (TNH) ] [ Crooked Timber ] [ Junius (Chris Bertram) ] [ Baghdad Burning (Riverbend) ] [ Bruce Sterling ] [ Ian McDonald ] [ Amygdala (Gary Farber) ] [ Cyborg Democracy ] [ Body and Soul (Jeanne d'Arc)  ] [ Atrios ] [ The Sideshow (Avedon Carol) ] [ This Modern World (Tom Tomorrow) ] [ Jesus's General ] [ Mick Farren ] [ Early days of a Better Nation (Ken MacLeod) ] [ Respectful of Otters (Rivka) ] [ Tangent Online ] [ Grouse Today ] [ Hacktivismo ] [ Terra Nova ] [ Whatever (John Scalzi) ] [ GNXP ] [ Justine Larbalestier ] [ Yankee Fog ] [ The Law west of Ealing Broadway ] [ Cough the Lot ] [ The Yorkshire Ranter ] [ Newshog ] [ Kung Fu Monkey ] [ S1ngularity ] [ Pagan Prattle ] [ Gwyneth Jones ] [ Calpundit ] [ Lenin's Tomb ] [ Progressive Gold ] [ Kathryn Cramer ] [ Halfway down the Danube ] [ Fistful of Euros ] [ Orcinus ] [ Shrillblog ] [ Steve Gilliard ] [ Frankenstein Journal (Chris Lawson) ] [ The Panda's Thumb ] [ Martin Wisse ] [ Kuro5hin ] [ Advogato ] [ Talking Points Memo ] [ The Register ] [ Cryptome ] [ Juan Cole: Informed comment ] [ Global Guerillas (John Robb) ] [ Shadow of the Hegemon (Demosthenes) ] [ Simon Bisson's Journal ] [ Max Sawicky's weblog ] [ Guy Kewney's mobile campaign ] [ Hitherby Dragons ] [ Counterspin Central ] [ MetaFilter ] [ NTKnow ] [ Encyclopaedia Astronautica ] [ Fafblog ] [ BBC News (Scotland) ] [ Pravda ] [ Meerkat open wire service ] [ Warren Ellis ] [ Brad DeLong ] [ Hullabaloo (Digby) ] [ Jeff Vail ] [ The Whiskey Bar (Billmon) ] [ Groupthink Central (Yuval Rubinstein) ] [ Unmedia (Aziz Poonawalla) ] [ Rebecca's Pocket (Rebecca Blood) ] Older stuff: June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 (I screwed the pooch in respect of the blosxom entry datestamps on March 28th, 2002, so everything before then shows up as being from the same time)

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