Authors Sue Google, GOOG Says "You can Opt-Out!"

Google are trying very hard to show that the project is of benefit to the authors involved - but the big issue Google are not talking about is how they plan to monetise the project for their own profit regardless of author interests.

It's hard not to be given the impression that Google Print would run like a big scraper program, sort of like Amazon with AdSense - so effectively the authors works would be used as content as much to supply customers to advertisers, rather than to help the authors actually sell books - and IMO that is a very serious point John Battelle and other pro-distribution bloggers need to take very very seriously. Would they be just as happy allowing DaveN to scrape their books just to put AdSense on them?

Plus as Danny Sullivan has raised before, there is the whole issue of proprietary rights that Google may claim from the project - effectively, the danger of Google trying to claim properietary ownership for the documents it has scanned. I don't believe we've heard anything on resolving that issue yet.

Yeah it does seem weird that they try and pull that. It's like saying "We'll do anything we want to you, unless you opt-out". Maybe next time someone makes a scraper site they should put a little opt-out clause in it. Ya know, use peoples content, unless they opt-out. See what Google think of that idea.

And

Is much like some of the P2P and Music sharing arguements isn't it...

Maybe next time someone makes a scraper site they should put a little opt-out clause in it.

Doesn't that describe all the current engines? :)

I have a huge stack of books next to the scanner just waiting.

the problem with all the SE's is that what they do is technically illegal (imho) but that because the deal works for both parties (they send me traffic I don't care if they make some money from showing snippets of my content) we all accept it.

The things they're moving into now are very much less beneficial to the 'other' party - and I think they're having a problem understanding that. They sort of get the idea with not having ads on news (or perhaps they still keep forgetting) but then the news agencies are big enough to shout loudly. Gmail doesn't actually cost us anything to accept ads, so we don't mind too much and the protest was tiny, but as soon as what they do actually has the potential to cost us money (autolink :) ) then of course we're going to be bothered to comment....

note to Google; As they look at monetising more and more one sided things we're going complain more and more and get harder and harder to just ignore. Telling webmasters that 'users' benefit doesn't make up for us loosing out, so why should we accept the deal?

Googles big problem has always been to assume that because the original business model worked they can carry it through to every other one without causing issues.

What I still can't decide is if they genuinely don't understand how the deal needs to play out or just think playing dumb is the best way of dealing with it?

In a way, yes ;) But you know scraping web content and passing it off as your own, is a little different to grabbing web sites that want to be listed in the SERPS.

I never thought of it like this, but it really is just like running a scraper site with adsense on it. Kind of hard to defend it when you look at it that way.

I hope those authors have hired a lawyer that really knows how the web and search engines work, my experience is that most authors haven't the foggiest idea and neither do most lawyers.

neither for copyright issues or any other legal issues opt-out is a legal solution.

- You can't rape someone, just because they don't say no (sorry, she was french so I didn't understand a word!)

- You can't beat up people on the street just because they did not wear asign saying "DO NOT BEAT ME"

- You can't steal something from a shop just because he the shop owner dosn't have a sign saying "DO NOT STEAL HERE!"

- You can't drive too fast on the highway just because a sign is broken

The beauty of all this is that it's covered by law. The law protect copyright holder and anyone else against things we agreed is not acceptable. Copying someone elses work is covered by law and an op-out program is just not a legal way make it legal.

Google, wake up, grow up and accept that there are laws even YOU have to follow.

You guys have no idea of how many lawsuits have been filed against Google. I'm surprised this one got so much attention.

It seems to me that Google was inspired by Amazon's "Search Inside" feature, but they are being pre-emptive, whereas Amazon required authors/publishers to authorize the Search Inside service in advance.

I recently had to file a DMCA complaint with Google over their blog service. It took a while to find out who the right contact was (because they haven't updated their DMCA complaint guidelines to cover the blogging service). Once I got through the red tape, they handled the complaint decently and quickly.

I think there is a middle ground here, but Google definitely needs to give something up. They cannot be pre-emptive. Eventually, some of those lawsuits are going to start hitting home.

Penalties for copyright violation can run up to $250,000 per copy per violation (for registered works) in the United States. What happens if suits are brought against Google in multiple jurisdictions? Hoping for a single court decision to strike down all the other lawsuits doesn't strike me as a valid strategy in this arena.

Google, now would be a good time to follow Amazon's example and ask authors to OPT-IN. I would probably go for that myself (I did with Amazon).

...You know, I tried telling a guy today about the things Google do and what kind of company it is. The guy is a top level executive in a media business btw, but he's not very much into this part of the industry, still thinks Google is a search engine.

What was amazing was that as I listened to what I was saying it just sounded absurd. I mean a company breaking that many rules, stealing business from their own adwords representatives, monitoring search and surfing behaviour, violating copyright on pages, books, pictures, (video?), blacklisting press and simultaneously scraping their content, running registrar business without doing so, scanning personal email for keywords, modifying others' pages, keeping doors closed on everything internal, yet counting on everyone to share their network, IM and email contacts with them, and even outright threatening webmasters if they don't build sites to their specifics...

I was even being quiet on the most speculative stuff that's out there, but this alone.. well, it's just too much - it's so bizarre to think that people actually run a business like that.

Google makes a point on the Google blog that they only display a snippet of the author's work and therefore claim fair use.

However, fair use is not simply about distirbution but also storage - it is an infringement of electronic rights to store a digital copy of a copyright work without authorisation.

It's also worth pointing out that the Author's Guild has already successfully sued in similar areas.