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‘Google Book Search: Obfuscation & Mystification’
May 1, 2007 | 10:11 am
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By David Rothman
The issues with Google range far and wide. As this screenshot shows, Google is a constant fixation of publishers and librarians.
Whether the question is E-Book Museums or the usability of the texts online or book-related accessibility for other search engines, the TeleBlog and others have raised questions about Google’s book-digitization efforts.
Misleading PR from Do No Evil Land?
Now James Bridle, an editorial-and-tech guy for a small U.K. publisher, has weighed in with his own useful critique while making clear, like me, that he’s not anti-digitization. Excerpt:
“…Google Book Search isn’t the same as Google Web Search, and Google, if not actually, intentionally lying, is certainly willfully misleading publishers about its intentions.
“Google is going round telling everyone—and by everyone, I mean largely publishers, and publishers who don’t, by and large, have the firmest grip on the technological details of the enterprise—that Google Book Search is just like Google Web Search. It’s just an index. It’s about ‘discoverability.’ It’s about total public access to knowledge, and Google is just the facilitator.
“This is misleading. Google Web Search indexes pages already out there on the web. It stores a cached copy, but the actual data remains out there on the web, freely available to others, to read, or index for themselves. This isn’t the case with Google Book Search. Google holds all the data, and, unlike Google Maps, for example, I haven’t found any Open APIs or other means of getting at it. Yes, it’s copyright content; yes, Google has keyholder contracts with the rights holders; but the point remains: this isn’t open search, it’s a monopoly.
“Of course, publishers have every right to give their data to competitors too (Microsoft’s catch-up and near-invisible Live Book Search, for example), and Google is the first to point this out, but it’s worth bearing in mind, particularly while there is still no open, agreed format for distributing books electronically.”
“This dilemma increases when you hear what Google are saying about the status of these files. Emphatically they state, and I’m directly quoting Google’s Jason Hanley (Strategic Partner Development Manager) here: ‘Google Book Search is not an ebook.’ Except, to all practical purpose, it is, and it is intended to be…”
Reminder: I’m a very small stockholder in Google, but as you can see from the above, I won’t let that stop me from raising the obvious questions.
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Comments:
Wow, Mr. Bridle seems to be confusing two different things (well,
more than two if you count his prose style — this guy writes for
a living?).
He complains that Google Book Search isn’t like Google Web Search,
but what’s really different is that books aren’t Web pages.
The whole difference between the two searches is due to that
underlying difference in the source of the data. Taking that into
account, Google Book Search is like Google Web Search.
Huh? Google scans a book, then puts it back where it got it, freely available to others to read, or scan for themselves. Exactly like Google Web Search.
Mr. Bridle needs some coffee, I think. Or perhaps a course in
logic.
Dear Mr Janssen,
Thank you for the constructive comments on my prose style. I will take them under advisement. Unfortunately, I don’t write for a living – Oh that I did.
You make a fair comment that everyone else is free to read these books too. However, when discussing copyright materials, it is not the case that they are freee for others to scan and index – these require legal permissions which Google is obtaining from publishers – who have a limited grasp of the technologies involved – by persuading them that Google essentially represents the openness and free access of the internet ideal.
This is even more concerniong when it comes to the difference between ebooks and their ‘online access’ programme – but please read my full article and comment there if you wish to engage with this further.
Right, coffee…
Dear Mr. Bridle,
Huh? Certainly they are free for others to scan and index. Yes, obtaining the various permissions is part of the scanning process, and I’m sure that, given the various circumstances fate has seen fit to endow us with, Google has some advantages in this regard over at least some other individuals and corporations. But this, much as we may sometimes regret it, is simply a fact of existence in a non-deterministic world. My point remains: Google Book Search is like Google Web Search.
By the way, I’ve read your full article, and still don’t understand the sentence-paragraph beginning “Of course, publishers have every right…” What exactly is “worth bearing in mind”? Why does an “open” format (PDF doesn’t qualify? HTML doesn’t qualify?) have anything to do with it?
You are right to call the versions of the books that Google now selling access to “ebooks”. I’ve written a bit about this form of ebooks, and the associated DRM. I think it ‘s the wave of the future.
Publishers may have ‘a limited grasp of the technologies involved’ (so does everyone else except Google’s patent lawyer, presumably) but they have a pretty good grasp of the legal issues and have demonstrated it many times over. I just can’t see this as innocent publishers being ripped off by big bad Google.
It’s quite possible for Google Web Search to direct me to a Web page that I am then not allowed to read, or have to pay to read. That doesn’t often happen because most websites are keen to make themselves as widely available as possible. If publishers begin to take the same attitude to their books then I don’t see any downside there; if not then, as Bill points out, they can hold on to them just as tightly as they want.
@Bill – The paragraph beginning “Of course, publishers have every right…” simply refers to the fact that there are alternatives to Google. What is worth bearing in mind is that that alone does not make them realistic competitors. Not all markets are fully competitive – many, and most net-based ones – are mostly first-past-the-post.
By open formats I am referring to open standards such as those proposed by the Open Reader Consortium (http://www.openreader.org/) and the International Digital Publishing Forum (http://www.idpf.org/ocf/ocf1.0/). HTML is a web standard particularly suited to that environment and not an ebook standard, and PDF is a proprietary format. I believe open standards are essential to ensure the longterm acceptance, growth and success of ALL digital technologies – and I’m not alone – http://www.openstandards.net/ is a good a place to start as any if you want to read more about this.
I’m glad you agree with me about Google’s online access programme being functionally very similar to ebook provision. I hope this means you understand my unease with their bald and repeated statement that “GBS is not an ebook.” I certainly agree – whatever our respective positions on other issues – that such technology is the wave of the future.
@Jon – I don’t think they’re being ripped off, and this isn’t my concern. My only concern is that literature, its practice and consumption, remains in the hands of those who have its and our own best interests at heart. Please don’t take that to mean – necessarily – publishers, or that I believe Google does not.
@James,
About what an “open” standard is: we’ve had this discussion many times on both the ebook-community mailing list, and here on TeleRead. PDF (particularly PDF/A) is by any reasonable non-legalistic judgement an open standard, while still being, as you note, proprietary. Most of the standards groups listed on openstandards.net seem to me to be less effectively open with their standards and processes than Adobe is with theirs.
About GBS not being an ebook: clearly it’s not. Yes, they are also selling ebooks on their site, but that doesn’t make GBS an ebook.
About our best interests: buy some Google stock. It’s a publicly traded company. Then they’ll be working in your best interests.
If anyone’s still reading this, I was right. Ha!
[...] advantage of publishers’ (then) fairly minimal comprehension of ebooks and the web. It was reposted at Teleread. Here’s the key quote: This dilemma increases when you hear what Google are saying about the [...]