September 29, 2005
Authors' Guild vs. Google Print, Part 4
Publisher Richard Nash counters the argument posted yesterday regarding the Authors' Guild vs. Google Print lawsuit.
I participate in Google Print for Publishers, where I do get kicked back some of the moolah, in exchange for them allowing larger snippets of text.The money, he says, is negligible so far. He also adds:
From a legal standpoint: the fact that Google is For Profit does not eliminate the Fair Use argument. That is but one of the tests Congress established and that the Supreme Court has explored. Soft Skull is “for profit” and we quote other books in the books we sell. So if we make $0.0000003 off someone else’s book—we’re not going to pay royalties. Google simply happens to be aggregating a vast number of close-to-but-not-quite worthless books and I’m thrilled they’ve the resources to do this, because no one else has. And, because they’re conveniently using the Fair Use argument, nothing will stop others from aggregating that content also.For earlier comments on the lawsuit, see this and this.We all make money (or sometimes not, but we try) creating culture. Libraries may not, but I do, and Oxford University Press does. The culture product is incidental of course! Google is simply greasing the process of making culture products available—the fact that that is incidental to their goal, doesn’t make it any less real that it is useful.
posted by Laila Lalami at 12:00 AM
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