[governance] At Risk: Universal Online Access to All Knowledge

[Yehuda Katz]

At Risk: Universal Online Access to All Knowledge
by Linda Stone

Art. Ref.: 
http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/at-risk-universal-online-acces.html

Listen:
http://asp2.readspeaker.net/cgi-bin/radarrsone?lang=us&voice=Paul&customerid=176&url=http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/at-risk-universal-online-acces.html

--

I’ve been following Brewster Kahle and Robert Darnton, a University Professor
and director of Harvard’s Library, recently, and they’re concerned over the
settlement of the lawsuit between Google and the authors and publishers, over
the scanning and use of books in Google Book Search. In my experience, Brewster
is extraordinarily thoughtful and takes a long view. Early in my career, I was
a librarian. I love books. So while I’m not a lawyer and I find this
settlement confusing, I’m writing about it because I think it merits
awareness and a serious discussion.

The key issues appear to be whether the business model created by the
settlement will lock up content that essentially belongs to the public domain
(per Brewster) and whether the publishers’ and authors’ creation of a
Google monopoly for books will harm access to knowledge in the future (per
Darnton). Below, I’m relying on their words to explain this further.

Last week Brewster posted “It’s All About the Orphans”
(http://www.opencontentalliance.org/2009/02/23/its-all-about-the-orphans/) on
the blog of the Open Content Alliance, focusing on the plight of “orphan
works” - that vast number of books that are still under copyright but whose
authors can no longer be found:

"After digesting the proposed Google Book Settlement, it becomes clear that the
dizzyingly complex agreement is, in essence, an elaborate scheme for the
exploitation of orphan works… The upshot, if the Settlement is approved,
would be legal protection for Google, and only for Google, to scan and provide
digital access to the orphan works. Presto! … So, should the Settlement be
approved, Google will be handed exclusive access to the orphans, and the public
loses out… I, personally, am amazed at this creative use of class action law.
The three parties have managed to skirt copyright law, bypass legislative
efforts, and feather their own nests - all through the clever use of law
intended to remedy harms. This Settlement, if approved by the judge, will
accomplish things appropriate to a legislative body not to private corporate
boardrooms. Let’s live under the rule of law, as arduous as that might be,
and free the orphans, legitimately, not for one corporation but for all of us."

And in “Google & the Future of Books”
(http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22281), an article that Darnton published in
The New York Review of Books last month, the focus is slightly different but
the upshot is the same:

"After reading the settlement and letting its terms sink in—no easy task, as
it runs to 134 pages and 15 appendices of legalese - one is likely to be
dumbfounded: here is a proposal that could result in the world's largest
library… Moreover, in pursuing the terms of the settlement with the authors
and publishers, Google could also become the world's largest book business -
not a chain of stores but an electronic supply service that could out-Amazon
Amazon… The class action character of the settlement makes Google
invulnerable to competition… We are allowing a question of public policy -
the control of access to information - to be determined by private lawsuit…
As an unintended consequence, Google will enjoy what can only be called a
monopoly - a monopoly of a new kind, not of railroads or steel but of access to
information… The settlement creates a fundamental change in the digital world
by consolidating power in the hands of one company… This is also a tipping
point in the development of what we call the information society. If we get the
balance wrong at this moment, private interests may outweigh the public good
for the foreseeable future, and the Enlightenment dream may be as elusive as
ever."

A lot seems to be at stake and the court may approve the settlement in June! I
don't care if the settlement means that Google will get even richer
(disclosure: I’m a Google shareholder). The question is: to what extent will
WE become poorer?

---

-30-____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance