Robert J. Shapiro, Google vs. the publishers, Austin American-Statesman, January 20, 2006. Shapiro was the Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs in the Clinton administration. Excerpt:
Google has a technological knack for making a fortune out of almost everything it does, and who can blame the publishers for wanting a cut of that? But this fight is also about a bigger issue that affects the rest of us as well — namely, the pace at which new ideas can change people's lives. The publishers cast their case as a principled defense of intellectual property rights, but they haven't offered much to back it up....For works still under copyright, the Google library search will provide the bibliographic information found in a library card catalog, along with a few sentences or paragraphs that use the key words from the original search. It's hard to find the threat to any writer's intellectual property rights in those rules....[The AAP] argument seems to have it all backward. In the Google library project, what prevents potential copyright infringements is not a publisher's decision to "opt out" or not, but whether Google provides more than a snippet without a publisher's permission....Economic and social progress is the essential element of the Google library project, regardless of what money may be at stake. In the end, publishers should be agitated not by the Google project, but by how the Internet has changed their business in ways that don't favor them....Google is at the forefront of a transformational technology — the Internet. The Internet has changed the way we buy airline tickets, purchase music and even make telephone calls. The publishers' association is at a vital crossroads. It can try to resist the changes everyone else is embracing, with litigation and lobbying, or it can join the rest of us. By harnessing the technology developed by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and others, the publishing industry can exponentially expand their authors' exposure and give consumers much greater access to great literary works. Google is successful because it delivers what everyone wants and needs — information. Shouldn't every publisher want to be part of that?
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/20/2006 10:56:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
