Less Than Five Percent of Titles Are Available
Tim O’Reilly, namesake chief of the tech publisher O’Reilly, wrote a great post last Friday (Nov. 4) about the widespread unavailability of books on the market, and how the Google Print projects may alleviate that problem. O’Reilly also criticizes his brethren for their resistance in this matter.
If the American Association of Publishers and Author’s Guild were to prevail [in their lawsuits], the AAP is asking us to believe that publishers are willing to unearth the contracts for more than 25 million books, track down the authors, and get their permission to opt them in, and this despite the fact that 25 million books didn’t sell even one copy in 2004. Try to be serious. There is no economic incentive for publishers to opt in books in what I’ve called “the twilight zone.” This [opt in] approach will make the creation of a comprehensive search engine for books virtually impossible.
O’Reilly also gives cost estimates for the Google Print Library Project, and wonders whether publishers would be willing to make a comparable investment in making available backlist and out of print titles.
Perhaps most convincingly, O’Reilly points to his company’s profitable involvement in Safari, an online library of IT books that allows subscribers the ability to search nearly 3,000 titles available in the library, browse books by category, or download chapters for viewing offline. Essentially, Safari is iTunes for technical books; it existed before iTunes became iTunes for music.
It is interesting that the American Association of Publishers, the lobbying organization for the literary division of Big Content, has been positioning itself as David against Google’s Goliath. The Washington Times editorial cited below is the second time I’ve seen Schroeder a “pity poor us” stance: when AAP announced its lawsuit in late October, Schroeder said of Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, “They look like two sweet Stanford students, but in this case we’re David and they’re Goliath.”
O’Reilly Radar. Oops … Only 4% of Titles Are Being Commercially Exploited. Nov. 4, 2005.
See also:
Pat Schroeder and Bob Barr. Reining in Google. The Washington Times. Nov. 3, 2005.
Nick Schulz. Don’t Fear Google. Forbes.com. Nov. 3, 2005.
Kottke.org. Book Author to Her Publishing Company: Your Lawsuit is Not Helping Me or My Book. Oct. 20, 2005.
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Columnist Attacks Publishers’ “Density”
“May Google give the book publishing industry a collective ulcer. Mostly because the publishers are being so stinkin’ dense.
“Google has provoked an orgy of angst over its two book-related projects. The misinformation and misguided attempts to stop these projects are mind-blowing.”
Kevin Maney. Critics Should Grasp Google Projects Before Blasting Them. USA Today. Nov. 8, 2005.
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Grokster Is Gone
From the Grokster home page:
The United States Supreme Court unanimously confirmed that using this service to trade copyrighted material is illegal. Copying copyrighted motion picture and music files using unauthorized peer-to-peer services is illegal and is prosecuted by copyright owners. There are legal services for downloading music and movies. This service is not one of them.
Actually, this characterization is wildly inaccurate. In MGM v. Grokster, the Supreme Court held that any party who distributes a device intending to promote copyright infringement can be held liable for third parties’ actions, even if the device has lawful uses. The Court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s judgment in Grokster’s favor, and sent the case back to the Ninth Circuit for further proceedings. Grokster had sought to have the case dismissed before a federal district court trial; the Supreme Court’s decision in June effectively said that Grokster’s motion for summary judgment would be denied, and that the case should be litigated.
Of course, this is not the interpretation one gets from the message on the Grokster home page, and that is because Big Content now controls the Grokster Web site. And Big Content controls the Grokster Web site because Grokster has settled the case with two divisions of Big Content. (Post-settlement, Grokster’s home page now includes links to the Big Movie and Big Music “informational” Web sites about copyright.)
What remains to be determined is whether Streamcast, a co-defendant with Grokster, also will settle the pending lawsuit it is defending from Big Content. The public relations spin that appears on the Grokster home page does not mention Streamcast.
Dawn C. Chmielewski. Grokster Shut Down, Plans Legal Service. MercuryNews.com. Nov. 8, 2005.
See also:
Matthai Chakko Kuruvila. Hollywood Breathes Sigh of Relief over Grokster’s Demise, Settlement. MercuryNews.com. Nov. 8, 2005.
Supreme Court of the United States. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. (.pdf) June 27, 2005.
EFF Deep Links. Remedying Grokster. July 25, 2005.
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Copyright Office Analyzing DMCA Again
The U.S. Copyright Office is conducting a rulemaking proceeding mandated by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which provides that the Librarian of Congress may exempt certain classes of works from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. The purpose of this rulemaking proceeding is to determine whether there are particular classes of works as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses due to the prohibition on circumvention of measures that protect access.
The scope of this rulemaking is limited, by statute, to the examination of evidence of the adverse effects of the prohibition on circumvention of measures that protect “access” to copyrighted works.
The most persuasive comments will be comments that provide specific facts about how measures that protect access to works harm, or are likely to harm, noninfringing uses by users of copyrighted works. Commenters should clearly specify the particular noninfringing use of a work that was intended and how a technological measure that protects access to that work prevented or is likely to prevent this noninfringing use. It would also be helpful for a commenter proposing an exemption to show that this particular noninfringing use of a copyrighted “work” can not be reasonably accomplished by means of alternative authorized copies of the work available in the marketplace.
The deadline for electronic submissions is 5:00 P.M. E.S.T Thursday, Dec. 1. Commenters are strongly encouraged to submit comments well in advance of the deadline to allow sufficient time to correct any format defects and resubmit comments before the deadline.
U.S. Copyright Office. DMCA Comment Submission form.
Film & TV Gets Napsterized
“For years, the entertainment industry tried to fool us — and itself — into thinking that it only prospered by giving consumers what they wanted. The real strategy of the entertainment industry has been to force customers to pay inflated prices to watch the movies and television most profitable for the industry to produce, at times that allowed the industry to rake in the most money, and distributed through channels designed to keep out upstart competition.
“Here’s an industry that for years got away with providing 22 original episodes of television shows for a 52-week year. An industry that makes cable customers purchase 20 channels they don’t want to get the one channel they do.
“But technology now threatens to put the consumer back in charge.”
Steven Pearlstein. Prime Time Gets Redefined. WashingtonPost.com. Nov. 9, 2005.
(Editors Note: The Post allows free access to their stories on the Web for 14 days before sending the stories to the papers fee-based Archives.)
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Film & TV Gets Napsterized
“For years, the entertainment industry tried to fool us — and itself — into thinking that it only prospered by giving consumers what they wanted. The real strategy of the entertainment industry has been to force customers to pay inflated prices to watch the movies and television most profitable for the industry to produce, at times that allowed the industry to rake in the most money, and distributed through channels designed to keep out upstart competition.
“Here’s an industry that for years got away with providing 22 original episodes of television shows for a 52-week year. An industry that makes cable customers purchase 20 channels they don’t want to get the one channel they do.
“But technology now threatens to put the consumer back in charge.”
Steven Pearlstein. Prime Time Gets Redefined. WashingtonPost.com. Nov. 9, 2005.
(Editors Note: The Post allows free access to their stories on the Web for 14 days before sending the stories to the papers fee-based Archives.)
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
USA PATRIOT Act Increases Domestic Surveillance
“‘National security letters,’ created in the 1970s for espionage and terrorism investigations, originated as narrow exceptions in consumer privacy law, enabling the FBI to review in secret the customer records of suspected foreign agents. The [USA] Patriot Act, and Bush administration guidelines for its use, transformed those letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies.
“The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress.”
Barton Gellman. The FBI’s Secret Scrutiny. WashingtonPost.com. Nov. 6, 2005.
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
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