there’s nothing new in this “revelation”.

and there’s no need to “keep it secret”;
a bloody idiot can figure out how to do it.
cheapskates i know realized this option
right off the bat. it’s not rocket science.

and if the people over at o’reilly didn’t
see this supposed “hole” before, then
maybe they ain’t that smart after all.
(andy oram, are you listening?)

but i assure you the cookbook people
and the travel-guide people, and most
publishers that put out books that are
purchased on the basis of “a few pages”
sprinkled thoughout are well-acquainted
with the need to “restrict” those pages.

of course, such books are the ones that
have always exploited this “necessity”
for buying the whole book when all you
_really_ wanted was those few pages, so
maybe it’s time to cut off those publishers.

(in the same way that itunes has helped to
hobble the record companies that put out
“albums” with just one or two good songs,
knowing we’d have to buy the whole thing.)

it’s not up to google to “plug” this “leak”.
the publisher just needs to specify that
all these “special” pages be “restricted”,
up to and even including the whole book.

hiding the totality of your content online
is like shrinkwrapping your paper-books –
it’s a strategy that is doomed to failure…

so i _encourage_ all publishers to opt-out!
it’s an excellent i.q. test for the new world,
and the fastest/best way to thin the herd.

-bowerbird

As for your concern with the new lead, what a hoot! Does this mean you’ll go after PG in a big way for not disclosing trifles like the origins of their electronic editions? OK. Happy holidays and don’t overdo the recreational drugs.

David

P.S. Later today I’ll post O’Reilly editor Andy Oram’s comments, and people can see that O’Reilly may indeed want to make things tougher for mouchers. May. Tim O. himself was out of town. Andy’s just speculating.

it seems it would be easy enough to instead
append updates in a clearly-marked section,
thus leaving the dialog-trail free of distortion.
it’s only fair to own up to what you really said.

your blog, your call, but that’s my opinion…

-bowerbird

and your cutting of my quote of
what that blogger actually said
makes my comment unintelligble.
(he thought he had uncovered a
“hole” that was “significant” and
thus had “beat” google’s system.)

for anyone who wants to know
the u.r.l. of this silly blog post,
e-mail me at bowerbird at aol dot com
or — since the blogger _did_ post
my comments, you can probably
just google them. (ironic, isn’t it?)

by the way, a whole flock of people
have now commented that this “bug”
is actually the way the system works,
with “protection” against a person who
tries to read the whole book this way
in the form of “restricted pages”…

-bowerbird

It sounds to me that if O’Reilly was really concerned about this, they’d limit the number of page views available, which is pretty liberal. While the author of the “hack” implies that entire books can be read using his technique, based on the viewing restrictions (again, controlled by the publishers who opt-in) this is very unlikely or easily remedied while maintaining the value of the service so that this becomes a non-issue.

Google’s stated purpose of Google book search is to help people find books, not to circumvent the process of obtaining a legitimate copy (real or electronic).

“What is Google Book Search?
Search the full text of books to find ones that interest you and learn where to buy or borrow them.”

Simply put, Google book search makes books findable. Are the benefits of making books findable outweighed by a small number of people who are going to take advantage of the system to browse without buying? To use the bookstore browsing analogy: Should brick and mortar retailers put all of their books “behind the counter” to foil the browsers who don’t buy?

On the other hand, does indexing the complete text of published works to make them more findable on the web necessarily have to include making excepts visible in the search results? Is this what the Authors Guild objects to the most, or is it the possibility of Google somehow monetizing content without compensating authors and publishers?

Synchronicity and/or irony: I’m currently reading the O’Reilly title Ambient Findability by Peter Morville where he discusses the importance of findability on the web, and I’d be interested to hear the author’s thoughts on this hack so I’ll send him an email.

What’s interesting is that O’Relly itself has published tips that interfere with others’ business models. Not much–but some. I’d side with O’Reilly here, but I can appreciate the complexities. What happens if you tell how to turn a disposable video recorder into a reusble one, for example? Are you playing Fagin?

big deal! here’s the comment i left
at the blog, which probably will _not_
be allowed, because the blogger has to
“approve all comments before posting”.

[deleted first name] said:

[I deleted the quote to prevent cheapsakes from tracking down the blog via Feedster, in case the blogger does let Bowerbird's comments get through. - David.]

um, no. are you joking?

i know lots of idiots who
figured this out long ago.

if you’re too cheap to buy
the book in the first place,
as you [the blogger with the how-to - D.R.]
freely admit, then
o’reilly lost no money off
your tactic, so you “beat”
nobody, you little worm.

enjoy the free hacks!
and spread the word,
because you’re helping
tim escape obscurity…

my goodness, the things
that can pass for “clever”
these days are astounding…

-bowerbird