Tuesday, September 20, 2005

US authors group sues Google (Reuters): Reuters - The Authors Guild, a U.S. writers advocacy group, sued Google Inc. on Tuesday in federal court, alleging that the Web search leader's bid to digitize the book collections of major libraries infringes on individual author's copyrights. (Via Yahoo! News - Technology.) Brilliant. Authors, enslaved to an obsolete distribution system that keeps most of profit from their work, sue to block their only viable path to freedom. They offer themselves as pawns to greedy lawyers who have the chutzpah to demand damages for actions not yet carried out. If it were not for the loss to the public good, I'd hope that Google take their toys home and wait until obsolescence kicks some sense into their thick skulls. Alternatively, it would be fun to watch a countersuit for abuse of the limited copyright monopoly. Unfortunately, the courts have been so craven in their obeisance to copyright monopolists that I don't hold much hope there. Yesterday, I heard an interesting story about aggressive ongoing digitization of Chinese language libraries. It will be ironic if the first fully searchable physical libraries are those for one of the hardest writing systems to transcribe mechanically. But it would not be surprising, just another example of how obsolete political and business arrangements are suffocating social and economic growth in the US. Update: Today's New York Times has a slightly more detailed story, which reports that the Author's Guild is seeking an injunction against copying and a declaration that the program violates copyright law, as well as damages from any violations so far. How could anyone with reasonable intentions demand damages for scanning that has been kept in confidence and has not led to any product, service, or distribution? Yet another copyright land grab. You can read a library book and remember its contents, but you are not allowed to use computers to help you in the task. 9:43:02 PM