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“Is Google’s culture grab unstoppable?” – editorial in The Register
January 3, 2009 | 12:10 pm
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By Paul Biba
The site with the best logo in the world, The Register, has a scathing editorial on Google’s settlement of the “Google Books” case. Since he is an attorney for the original Napster, he is someone we should probably take seriously.
The Google Books lawsuit demonstrates that it is nigh impossible for individual creators to stop the rampage of a corporate King Kong that is willing to spend endless sums on lawsuits to commoditize art. The unspoken lesson to every young entrepreneur in Silicon Valley is to stonewall—litigate if you can, particularly if you are richer than your opponent. Do not underestimate Google’s influence on the Valley – who would argue with the “mind of God”?
Only governments can take on Google-sized bad boys when the big dogs come after your culture. Governments are concerned about the market power of big search companies – this settlement should alarm both regulators and consumers.
As the Booksellers Association correctly concludes, “[A]n over zealous embrace of this new Google initiative may well, in the long term, deliver a more limited route-to-market for books rather than the incremental benefits that seem to be the current perception.”
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Comments:
Our legal system is completely broken. By any rational assessment a society requires a criminal justice system that is designed to impartially determine guilt or fault. But our adversarial system of “justice” only benefits those who can afford to buy expensive legal assistance. The average American will find himself bankrupt by any contact at all with the world of lawyers and courts and prosecutors.
So, yes it’s a travesty that a huge corporation can use the courts to steamroll the little guy. But it’s the norm in the USA. It’s also a travesty that our jails are filled with the poor while the rich can buy a free pass to commit a multitude of crimes.
As a lawyer for the past 45 years I can say, from personal experience, that you are completely correct. I am embarrassed by our system.
Unfortunately, having worked in 45, or so, countries around the world, our system is still the best – poor as it is. Imagine what the legal climate is in other countries – in some you are guilty until proven innocent! Literally, that is how the justice code is written.
In the 4 Jan NY Times there is a fair article on the whole Google Books outlook going forward. This struck my eye:
“For readers who might want to buy digital access to an individual scanned book, Mr. Clancy said, Google was likely to sell at least half of the books for $5.99 or less. Students and faculty at universities who subscribe to the database will be able to get the full contents of all the books free.”
I’m one of the authors whose books may have been illegally scanned by Google. The Google/Author’s Guild settlement is set up to apply to every author and every publisher in every country that has signed the Berne agreement. I am forced by the terms of the Settlement to either accept ridiculously low compensation ($60/title maxiumum per violated book copyright, and I’d aalso have to _pay_ on an ongoing basis just to be in Google’s database), or opt out of the Settlement entirely by May 5 2009, risking Google selling my books without paying me at all. I really, truly do not care about the public benefits of Google selling stolen material cheap. I doubt many paper books will sell once enough unprotected Google e-files are floating around free. Google has no right to deprive me of a large portion of my income just to make life a little bit sweeter for college students.