Taking from the information in the articles, the main problem with the Google Books project is that it fails to establish and maintain copyright with a majority of the authors whose works it will be using. Granted, the problem with this is that the authors will not be credited for their work and, of course, will not be paid for their work being read or used.
One of the articles claims that Google is attempting to turn the internet into a “suburban mall bookstore,” brings to mind the fact that Borders, one of the country’s big chain bookstores, is currently in the process of permanently shutting down, partially due to the fact that they could not keep up with the rapidly-digitizing culture that has, within the last few years, taken over books. The other major book chain, Barnes & Noble, however, has been able to survive the digitalization of books, since they chose to market the well-known “e-book” reading device known as the Nook. Thus, they are still selling books, though maybe not in physical print.
Another main issue, brought up in the article “Judge Rejects Deal to Digitize Books,” is that Google will profit tremendously from “orphan works,” or books whose right holders are unknown. It seems cruel to think that a company with exorbitant amounts of money will only continue to benefit from carrying books with no known publisher or author, but it also seems that these profits are merely a drop in the bucket compared to other deals with corporations that Google uses to make its money. Still, the idea is unethical, and the primary issue at hand is the maintenance of copyright. Another way to think of it might be to contemplate the digitalization of music that happened in the early 2000s and how songs available for free download from sites such as Napster began to bring down the music industry. Perhaps one can compare this to the digitalization of books and try to understand why Google’s Book Search project may be detrimental to the printed word.
I think the real problem here is in conflicting worldviews. On the one hand, we live in a market economy. We’re capitalists. We believe in the “American Dream” which tells us that we all have equal opportunity to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and better our situations. Although we say that it’s about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” we all know that the American Dream is really about money. Just because we’re born poor doesn’t mean we can’t die rich! We reward hard work and innovative ideas monetarily.
That doesn’t realistically translate into the digital humanist’s dream of free and unrestricted access for all. How can we produce free and unrestricted access for all out of a society driven by the almighty dollar, and thus also deeply invested in individual ownership and property rights?
It’s nice to think that Google is trying to do a public service, but as Geoffrey Nunberg says, “Google’s five-year head start and its relationships with libraries and publishers give it an effective monopoly” (and monopolies, if I remember my U.S Government correctly, are technically illegal in this country). And that’s why Judge Chin ruled against it – monopolies go against the spirit of competition that drives a market economy.
Now, while the idea of having access to every book ever written, in digital format, accessible from the comfort of our own home computers, can be a lovely thought, I am certainly not anxious to put all my trust in one company, especially not after reading about all the metadata and other errors in Google’s project thus far. Nor do I particularly relish the idea of Google trying to gain rights to copyrighted material, thereby absorbing more profit that would have gone to the owners of that material.
As a wannabe writer myself, this idea does not sit well with me at all. If I ever do write a book, and successfully publish it, I believe that I deserve to own and profit from my own work, not some huge corporation. And that sentiment is ingrained in us from birth – what’s mine is mine, and I have the right to it, and the right to keep it from you. How do we overcome 200+ years of programming that tells us we have a right to own what we produce in order to allow for this free and unrestricted access for all that the more optimistic of our “readings” wax poetic about?
And again, I feel the need to point out that digital technology in general is necessarily elitist; if you can’t afford a computer, you don’t get access to those materials. How can there ever be truly free and unrestricted access for all if the bulk of humanity’s knowledge base moves to a format that is only accessible by those with the economic means to interface with digital technologies?
I thought that was interesting that you related the downloading of music back in 2000 to the Google book project. It dose seem to be similar and I wonder if google books would get shut down just like the free music downloads did.
The other thing I remember reading about that seemed to be a big problem with google books is the print quality. It seems that many of the books on online display are being cut off and not completely readable.